Shredded Ice
by SlavetoMyself55
Summary: Dib knew he should have never taken that proposition as he finds himself trapped with his enemy in a situation where the words "thin ice" are used in a literal sense... ZADF
1. Deadly Commitments

**Invader Zim is owned by... er... Nickalodeon. I thank Jhonen Vasquez for creating such an inspirational work of art as a source of entertainment. **

He recited the song in his head a moment more as he stuffed his hands in his winter coat and continued to keep up his long, graceful strides towards Central Park. The snow was falling softly now with an incessant flow of the frozen water droplets. Soon enough he would have to turn back towards his home of solitude where the TV would be emitting a blue glow, every often changing colors, and his sister would be sitting on the couch as usual using her lightning fast fingers to pass another level on that idiotic game device she always had her eyes glued on. He rolled his eyes at the thought. And, of course, there would be his father trying to invent something simply mind- boggling that would amaze the world.

No, there would be no warm fireplace for him to sit in front of tonight. Just the continuations of the buzzing and clanking he heard down in the lab and the lasers followed up by horrific explosions from his sister's game. He still remembered when she first received that hypnotic piece of technology.

It had been a few Christmases ago and being that she was a year younger than he was, she gathered up all of her presents into one giant pile, a pile that had been twice as large as his, and gently plucked off the wrappings off of each one with a grimace as she realized that most of them were socks and clothes. It had only been one particular present she was interested in as its physical appearance was different than all the others and she followed suit in persistently opening the gift. He remembered how large her amber eyes grew along with a shine he had never really seen before in his life.

He never dared tell her he bought it for her because he merely thought that she should start up on a new hobby other than threatening kids from their school because they were merely brushing up against her on accident or annoyed her by talking to someone next to her. From then on she constantly began playing the game even after her one hundredth beating of the entire game.

It had only been this last Christmas that she received the new and improved version of the game that had just shipped out from Japan. It was the Game Slave 4. She shut herself off from the world and isolated herself inside her room for the next month snacking on pizza and soda until she emerged from her room with a satisfied smirk, her miniature held hand device clutched in her hand that read out in bright orange bold letters: YOU WIN.

He pictured her in his mind again from the day she first received the first Game Slave. Bright amber eyes the same as his eye color growing large from under her thick lashes, mouth gaped open, purple hair resting calmly on her elegant shoulders, her slim figure trembling from the excitement. He will never forget that look.

The teen chuckled this time as he kept along trudging through the several inches of snow, keeping watch for giant feet embedded within it. Being a paranormal investigator it was his duty to keep track of any evidence of Big Foot or ghosts lurking around within the park. (Although it would be hard sensing ghosts out since it was fairly chilly all around him.) His mind then slipped to his one mortal enemy he had been tracking down since his first arrival on Earth.

Zim. His one and true foe that had decided to show his stupid alien ass on Earth and try to conquer the "ball of dirt". His enemy showed all the signs that he was in fact an alien: Green skin, no ears, no nose, obvious synthetic implants in his eyes, three fingers, and an Elvis shaped wig that covered those interesting antennas that adorned his head.

Yes, he had seen Zim in his alien form and, honestly, the disguise hardly looked any different. The only change was the fact that Zim wore human contacts that covered his large, ruby colored orbs that shone at his victories and darkened with volatile and the ebony wig he wore that covered his antennas. Nothing else seemed to have changed about him. He was obvious in the way of his physical appearance—not to mention that segmented tongue of his— and that he was a terrible impersonator of a normal human being.

He would strut around in that idiotic way that made humans stare at him quizzically and would yell randomly when it wasn't necessary or give out loud speeches of destroying the Earth. It was ridiculous to say the least. The teen still could hardly believe that no one could see that he was indeed an alien. It was absurd that his own kind couldn't piece together all the facts that he had thrown at them. Not even his own father, who was a world famous scientist, believed it. He merely called his son crazy and declared Zim was just foreign.

He snorted at the thought. Yeah, he is foreign all right. In fact, he managed to find out a little bit about Zim and his own people. He first began to realize that his people looked fairly similar in every way. They were mostly short, green, had antennas, and had large colored orbs for eyes. All of them also wore strange looking metal backpacks on their backs called PAK's.

He found out that their PAK's are specifically their external brains. They NEED their PAK to live or else they will die without it if not connected to a PAK within ten minutes. (He found this out after removing Zim's pack and Zim revealing why he needed the precious device). It provided everything for them. Weapons, nutrients, charging cells, and they even produced mechanical spider limbs that helped them aid in battle.

Zim's people were called Irkens and they had a hierarchy system that was particularly interesting. They based their system of ranking by _height. _Their empire mainly ran consistently on their main ship where their leaders lay in their chambers and ruled from a huge ship called The Massive.

Their leaders, The Tallest, were the only Tallest Irkens in the empire and he had met both of them over a transmission while trying to demand that they spill their weaknesses and pinpoint their planet. He realized that their entire empire only lived to conquer other planets and expand beyond the regions of the universe.

Then he began to infer that most of the Irkens were assigned to different planets to infiltrate and find out the species weaknesses to assess the Armada and commence the Organic Sweep that annihilated the entire race of the planet. Zim, unfortunately, had to be assigned to Planet Earth where he was now fighting off Zim and trying to stop him from conquering.

He, alone, was the planet's only defense now. He had cried wolf so many times during different events that his own kind began to ignore his cries of help and figure that it was nothing of importance. Oh, how he filled to the rim with rage by their ignorance and incompetence to at least try and give a lending hand in his direction.

He angrily kicked a clump of snow in his path, the tips of his toes throbbing from the sudden intrusion when ice and flesh met with a hard thud. He stopped walking for a minute to take a look at his surroundings. He was soaked up from all of his thoughts that he merely forgot where he was walking to. There were a few snowy trees surrounding him but it seemed that he had exited the park and took a different route towards a vacant area near a dead ended neighborhood.

Everything in sight seemed to reflect colors of white and grey, but something fluorescent caught his eye. He snapped his head to the side to find a familiar sight that made the insides of his stomach clench uneasily.

Zim's tall, oddly tipped neon green house shone throughout the neighborhood. Wedged between two other dull buildings, it had a V-shaped purple roof that fit together like a puzzle piece and slanted windows just below it. The door also was tinted a purplish pink color and there were random gnomes aligning the walkway towards his door. A fence ran parallel along the house and the usual grass that covered the ground was piled with snow.

He reminisced about the event a few months ago when Zim had barricaded himself in his base for almost a month. He had tried everything to interrogate Zim out of his base to fight him and not act like the coward he was being. He even threw water balloons at his house to see if it had any effect on the house like it did on Zim.

After a few weeks he gave up trying to entice Zim to coming out and instead made himself busy by watching his favorite paranormal investigating show: Mysterious Mysteries. But it soon became dull after a while and he admitted that without Zim around there wasn't really much to do. Even the spy cameras he had spent months putting inside Zim's house without him noticing were all damaged and showed not even a sliver of the alien inside.

Conclusions of Zim dead and decaying inside his base gripped onto him until he convinced himself that Zim must have been going through an alien cycle that he didn't know about. It wasn't until at the end of the month that Zim finally showed up at school one day and the boy instantly bombarded him with questions. Zim insisted that nothing happened and went onto insulting him about his giant head like normal.

He soon dropped the matter and neither of them had brought up the incident once. Though, he would secretly wonder what had gone through those weeks where Zim had mysteriously disappeared. He vowed to find out soon and sure enough here he was, outside looking at his dysfunctional house.

He took a long look at the glowing house for a minute more before he realized that he was taking slow steps towards the odd looking building. He did not know why his feet were carrying him up the street, onto the walkway towards his house, and up the step to his door. Nor did he know why his hand began to rap lightly on the door.

Before he could regain his bearings on what the hell he was doing there, the door instantly swung open to reveal Zim's robot servant: GIR.

GIR's large teal eyes widened and matched the rest of his charismatic outfit along with a goofy grin to match.

"HIYA, BIGHEAD!" The robot screeched unpleasantly and he winced at the cacophony of degrading noise and the fact that everyone—even robots— was still making fun of his big head.

"Uh, hi," he replied with a lame smile back. He took a glance around the small robot and spilled his eyes inside the lit up living room for any sign of Zim.

"Where's Zim?" he blurted out, still searching for him while still standing out in the chilly weather outside his door.

"Masta's in his lab working on stuffs." GIR smile grew larger and his tongue stuck out in a playful way. The boy smiled.

It was perfect. He would sneak in and begin taking pictures on his digital camera around the house very stealthily just as long as GIR didn't make much noise, which was going to be difficult; VERY difficult indeed. He knew that Zim's underground lab would keep him preoccupied for a while until the house's computer warned that there would be an intruder present within the base.

He smiled down at GIR. "Hey, GIR, was it? You mind if I come in and start taking pictures of you and Zim's _amazing _house? For memories, you know?" He put on a fake smile this time and had strained to make out the word 'amazing' in an attempt to make it convincing.

"YAAAY! PICTURES!" GIR shouted, running around inside the room with excitement. The fourteen-year-old stepped into the house and instantly regretted making GIR elated as GIR began to echo his annoying voice around the walls of the base. He quickly grabbed the robot by the arm and forced him to stop running.

"Yes, that's great and all, but I will only stay if you promise to keep quiet, okay?" He whispered to GIR, who grinned and nodded vigorously.

He whipped out his camera and decided to take his first picture of GIR, who was now running into the kitchen blabbering about making some more muffins.

The boy snuck between the shadows of the house clicking away on his camera every so often, relishing in every new crevice and detail that the house offered. He had traveled up to a secret entrance that led up to a hallway where different doors were shown on either side of the hall. He opened the first door and found a comfortable looking bed with a nightstand next to it. But those were the only two items in the room.

He took a quick picture before exiting out and descending down the hall a little more. What he really wanted was to take pictures down inside Zim's lab. That was where the most peculiar and awesome inventions were stored.

But he knew that it would be extremely difficult to go down in there and take pictures without getting caught by the alien. In his previous attempts, he had been caught dozens of times by his foe and every time his camera was either destroyed or stolen by Zim.

Clanging of pots and pans were heard down in the kitchen from GIR and he decided that it was best if he got the hell out of there now before—

"GIR! What are you doing? Quit making a mess in the kitchen!"

His blood ran cold and he pressed himself up against the wall of the hallway, his heart beating loudly against his chest. There was no doubt that was Zim's obnoxious voice reverberating off the halls from down below.

His heart thumped even louder when he could hear only silence following the sudden outburst. He heard the faintest of mumbles before it grew silent again. He quickly hid in the shadows as he tried to control his breathing.

Why is it so silent down there? Zim was never EVER this silent and it began to unnerve the young teen to a state where he was terrified for his well being. He decided that he needed to quickly get out of there NOW.

He darted through the shadows of the halls, creating new ones from the light casting on his framed figure dancing in the darkness. He stopped suddenly when he heard faint clicking noises. It was as if they were metals clinking together and making pitter patter noises on the floor.

At the sudden cognizance of what it was, he ran as fast as he could down the hallway, breath becoming out faster and faster by each bound. The clicking noises began to go faster as well as they quickly began to catch up to the boy.

Low growls were mixed in with the clicks and the boy's eyes grew larger by the horrible mixture of noises that he feared to be his enemy. He stumbled and dug his heels into the ground as he found that the entry way that he had entered before had disappeared.

He was trapped.

He spun around and instantly backed up into the wall behind him as the clicking noises slowed down as if it, too, realized that their prey was in its trap. He clutched onto the wall out of fear as he saw Zim emerge from the shadows levitated by the four mechanical spider limbs that had conjured out of his PAK.

Shaking, he pressed himself even farther into the wall if that was even possible. He wanted to melt discreetly into the wall without Zim noticing what happened. But, unfortunately, his reality consisted of the impossibility of melting and disappearing into walls.

The walls seemed to close in, no matter how cliché that sounded, around him as Zim advanced a few steps until he was a few feet in front of the terrified paranormal investigator. His ruby eyes glinted with a soft glow under the dimly lit hallway as his eyes narrowed down upon his victim.

Finally, what seemed like hours, Zim opened his mouth to speak.

"What are you doing in my base, Dib-stink?" Zim snarled out in a surprisingly quite tone, his lip curling over his pink tinted zipper teeth.

Dib, haven been surprised by the exceedingly quite tone in his voice, opened his mouth to vocalize his excuse, but it seemed that his throat had somehow constricted, making it hard for him to bring forth any sound at all.

Instead he gaped back at him for a minute before closing his mouth to end the constant gaping. Choked noises had emitted from his mouth during that time and Zim's eyes seemed to have deepened. In what seemed to be the most controlled anger Zim had ever displayed in his life, he seemed to snap within only a few minutes.

"SPIT IT OUT!" Zim screeched out, balling his gloved hands into tight fists.

At that very moment, realization began to dawn on Dib and he forced himself to calm himself down as he realized that this was Zim. His enemy, his alien, his very proof that extra terrestrials do exist outside of their world that will bring him fame and glory; he should not be terrified over this simple minded, disgusting alien that he had been fighting with for years now.

What was he thinking? He should fight Zim back, damn it! Talk back to him! Pull out a camera and take a picture! Anything that considers some kind of action!

Building up his courage, Dib glared angrily over at Zim, opening his mouth to give out a smart ass retort.

However, Zim abruptly cut him off.

"Zim has no time to hear your lame excuses! Instead, Zim is more curious about this…"

In a flash, Zim's mechanical limbs had disappeared inside his PAK and he had extracted a flimsy blue packet that was messily folded up in a brochure style out of his PAK. He clenched it in his left hand while his other rested on his hip in a girly fashion. Dib almost smirked at the sight.

"Seeing as how your explanations bore me to death, you will give Zim a brief sentence summarizing what this is and why stupid humans such as yourself attend it." Zim tossed the crumpled and sad looking brochure at Dib with a flick of his wrist.

Dib fumbled with it, raising an eyebrow at Zim from under his largely rounded glasses before looking down at it.

Flooby's Ski Resort

Dib's brows furrowed together. Why would Zim care about humans attending a ski resort? He was instantly familiarized by the title of the ski resort and smiled at the sight.

Before Zim had arrived on the planet, every winter Dib would go to this exact same ski resort and begin to ski down their mountains (secretly looking for big footed tracks or any yetis on the mountains) by himself as his father worked on inventions in the cabin and his little sister, Gaz, would busy herself with a movie or her dumb game she got for Christmas.

He had only began skiing at the age of seven before quickly getting tired of using skis and switching to snowboarding since he thought that snowboarding would be more exciting for a "world famous" cool paranormal investigator to be on. He was always on new trails, trying out new things, before really getting good at it.

But since Zim had arrived a few years prior, he never really got the chance to go up with his family to have a bit of fun up on the mountains. He missed the cool breeze and powdery snow that whipped in his face whenever he took a sharp turn, easily gaining speed and creating S's down the freshly snowed ground. Or whenever—

"HUMAN!"

Dib snapped his head up to see Zim glaring dangerously at him, his face telling Dib that he was not pleased with the silence he was receiving.

"Huh?" Dib lamely asked, still not fully out of his day dream.

"Tell Zim what you know about this!" Ah, yes. He was supposed to summarize for him what this was.

"Zim, it's just a stupid ski resort. Why would you be—?"

"Yes, and?" Zim rudely interrupted.

"It's basically a resort where humans ski and snowboard down snowy mountains to have fun." Dib was getting irritated by Zim's stupidity.

"What is this… ski and snowboard thing you speak about? Tell Zim!"

He advanced more upon Dib and Dib straightened up to glare across at Zim.

"Why don't you go find out yourself, 'almighty dictator'? Why do you need to ask a human when you have stupid Irken technology that can do it for you?" Dib spat out in annoyance.

Zim growled low in his throat. His mechanical limbs once again protruded from his PAK and quickly shot out at Dib.

Dib didn't act fast enough as he was pinned by his trench coat to the wall by the four limbs. Zim marched up to him and gave a rather hard poke to Dib's forehead, leering over him menacingly.

"You will answer Zim _now_ before I tear you up into little Dib pieces and feed you to GIR," Zim replied almost casually with a darkened tone around the edges.

"But—" Zim cut him off by putting one of his three fingers on Dib's lips to silence him. Dib went cross eyed.

"There will be no ifs, buts, whys, or whatever any other human interruptions you make. You will tell Zim what he wants to know."

Zim gave Dib a malicious grin, his eyes brightening for a second.

"Besides… I don't think you have a say in it anyway. For you see, I have an advantage." At that statement, he quickly grabbed Dib's scythe hair piece that sticks out on his head and gave it a hard tug. Dib yelped and grit his teeth as Zim continued to yank on it.

"OK! Fine! I'll tell you! Just let go!"

Zim gave a satisfied smirk and let go. Dib grumbled to himself and straightened out before noticing that the metal limbs were still holding him hostage into the wall. He sighed as he realized that Zim wasn't going to let his prisoner go until he was drunk with the information that Dib would transfer to him.

"It's kind of hard to explain but skiing and snowboarding is pretty much like a sport on Earth," Dib began, keeping a straight face as Zim seemed to put on a contemplative look on his face.

Dib figured Zim was trying to get in a comfortable position as he shifted around on his feet, finally folding his arms across his chest and leaning back a bit.

Dib explained to Zim what the sport was about and why humans do this kind of thing during the winter time. He tried to keep it blunt and short but there was so much to tell about the sport that he kept on incessantly talking.

Zim didn't seem to mind either. In fact, the alien kept his eyes staring intently on Dib, leaning forward a bit and antennas perked up as the boy kept talking. Absentmindedly nodding to what Dib had to say about the snow smoothing out as the riding instruments rode along with it or how it would slate up as it went against it.

Once Dib had finished talking, Zim was silent for a moment before releasing the mechanical limbs with a loud metallic _ssshhhiiirk _and freeing Dib, who jumped at the sudden action of the alien. Dib looked over at Zim apprehensively and straightened out his trench coat. Zim's antennas lay back against his head.

"You seem to know much about this… sport that you humans tend to do. Tell me why you know so much about it, Dib," Zim said as an eye quirked up in puzzlement.

"I…well, I've been snowboarding for a while now so…"

Zim looked at him in a surprised way.

"That's funny. I've never seen you attend to this snowboarding thing."

Dib snorted, now looking irritated.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe because a moronic, green infested bug came to my planet and try to conquer it and so I've perhaps been trying to stop this virus from performing any attacks on my people. Does that answer your question?"

His sarcastic remark didn't seem to faze Zim in any way. Instead Zim merely waved his hand moodily in front of Dib's face.

"I don't have time for your stupid jokes, Dib. Zim wants to know when you are attending this winter event again."

Zim did not put it in a questioning form. The demand wasn't surprising to Dib. Surely years of listening to the Irken's silly shouts and demands had made him immune to it.

"Not until I'm sure you're off Earth for good or destroyed, Zim," Dib growled out.

To his surprise, Zim gave a snide smirk. Zim folded his arms across his chest and posed a triumphant look.

"Very well, Dib. If I swear on Irk's good name that I will post pone any contrives to destroy the Earth, will you do me a favor in return?"

The question set Dib off so hard that he had to rerun the question over and over again in his mind to try and make sense of it. He shook his head as if to clear his mind and blinked a few times before finally answering.

"What?" His disbelief tone broke the minutes of silence.

Zim growled. "Are your hearing desks in need of repair, you stupid human? You heard me! Answer my proposition!"

"Yeah, I heard it fine, Zim. I'm just having a hard time actually believing that you are trying to make a truce between us seeing as how we are enemies and all. What, are you trying to become friends with me or something?" Dib's snide remark seemed to bring a flush to Zim's face.

"Don't be ridiculous! Of course we are enemies! The mere thought of us being "friends" is ludicrous! I'm merely offering you a proposition is all! Idiotic human! How dare you reject Zim's request!"

Zim's face seemed to flush more and he was breathing deeply from the angered outburst. Dib covered his ears from the last shout.

"Fine! Just what favor are you offering I do for you?"

"Take me to this ski resort and show me the functions of this sport on your unnecessary fluffy snow. You will show Zim all that you know by basically demonstrating for me," Zim said. Once again, he smirked.

Dib raised a brow. "That's… a very odd favor for me to do for you in exchange for you to not destroy the Earth—"

"I'm merely postponing it, Dib. I never did say I wouldn't… destroy the Earth…" Zim seemed to hesitate at those words and Dib detected a quiver in his voice but it was quickly replaced by a glare set in his direction.

"…okay. That's fine. I get it. But I still don't see how this is an advantage on my behalf." Dib put a fisted hand on his hip.

"You humans are so needy," muttered Zim, once again extracting from out of his PAK another pamphlet that was neatly folded this time. He tossed it at Dib, who caught it without fumbling.

He unfolded the seams of the pamphlet and gazed at the contract in front of him. Before he started reading it, Zim interrupted once again.

"It's a contract that enables us to be in a truce for an extended amount of time. It will expire near the end of this month and between those times while we are set in a truce, my PAK will be re-encoded to upload the information and basically send an amount of painful shocks to my body if I were to try and break the truce.

"My PAK senses the innermost conscious of my mind and can tell if I were to go against the contract. As for you, if you break your word after signing this contract… nothing will happen to you… except for when I hunt you down and torture you to become my Dib slave for revenge. But that is entirely up to you."

Dib instantly regretted coming over to the base today.

"And if I refuse?"

"Who says you have a choice, Dib-thing?"

"You did."

"LIES!"

Dib gave Zim a flat stare. Zim had hardly changed at all during these years.

"Why are you even choosing me to teach you?"

"If not you then what other human would I choose? You also have experience in this sport thing so that makes it even more settled."

Dib wasn't sure if to be grateful or disgusted at this.

"You can't force me into this, Zim!"

"Actually I can. Unless you haven't noticed, I have a home field advantage over you. Any weapons you gunna use on me while in my base, hmm, Dib?" Zim smirked.

At those words, Dib felt a pang of uneasiness in the bottom pit of his stomach. Crap. The alien was right. He didn't have any weapons on him and he would be in deep dooky if he didn't agree to the stupid contract. He couldn't believe how idiotic this whole ordeal was. Why would Zim give up trying to destroy the Earth—and for what?—to know the fundamentals of skiing? Dib didn't know just what to do at that moment except stare at Zim with an unyielding stare.

He looked down at the parchment again before looking back up at Zim over the top of his glasses. Zim's eyes narrowed.

Dib closed his eyes and sighed out a deep breath. Finding no other alternative, he sealed his fate without the intention of doing so.

"Agreed."

Zim's grin grew so large that it would have reached his ears if he had any. He reached out his arm and pat Dib on the head with a loud smack.

"Very good, Dib-pet. Now, you will sign this treaty that will ensure our short amount of peace until the contract's time limit is broken."

Dib dismissed the odd nickname and snatched the contract away from Zim. He continued to grumble to himself as he searched his pockets for any kind of writing utensil. He glanced towards Zim who was already holding out a pen towards him, a knowing smirk plastered on his face.

Dib snatched that as well and grudgingly signed his name on the underlined blank spot right next to… Dib's eyes widened.

When had Zim signed this? He felt as confused as ever. Just what _was _Zim planning? Dib's eyes shifted over to Zim who was currently examining his fingers.

Zim must have noticed the hesitant tension because his antennas twitched and his eyes glanced at Dib with a threatening look. Dib shook his head in arrogance and dotted the 'I' on his name before handing back the contract towards the Irken.

Zim stuffed the parchment into his PAK once more and suddenly, as though on cue to break the oncoming silence, a large crash was heard from below. Dib and Zim winced in unison.

"Idiotic robot." Dib heard Zim mumble under his breath.

Zim snapped his attention at Dib and grabbed a hold on Dib's trench coat to start dragging him down below. Dib stumbled and fell onto his back while Zim continued to drag him. Dib protested and thrashed in his grip but Zim's incredible grip on him did not falter in the slightest.

Dib eventually gave up after a few minutes and he heard Zim chuckle to himself. This was new to Dib. He had never heard Zim chuckle or laugh naturally without adding any evil or triumph in it.

_This Zim_, Dib thought, _is rare in a way. _

He did not get to manage to dwell on this new piece of information for he was instantly thrown into the freezing snow face first. He jerked up, spluttering out the clumps of snow between coughs. He instantly turned to glare at Zim, who was now leaning against the doorway.

"You will come and see Zim before you leave on this trip. I assure you that I will be ready when the time comes. Don't worry about transportation. Zim has it covered."

With that, he shut the door behind him. Dib raised a brow at this but shook it off as he stood up to wipe the snow off himself.

_I can't believe I'm doing a favor for an alien, _Dib bitterly thought to himself. But, he admitted, it had its benefits. Soon enough, Dib would be back on Zim's doorstep in a week with his bags and snow gear all packed.

_By that day, _Dib thought, _I hope to be dead. _

Unfortunately… he wasn't.

**So... there you have it. Don't sue me. I had an idea growing in my head ever since I went snowboarding last year and now I want to make it a reality. :) I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of the epic journey they will take. **

**This is ZADF, people. I'm trying really hard to keep with characterization but I must warn you that it may change in the near future. **

**I'm hoping this story will develope into something I will be satisfied with and something you guys will enjoy reading. **

**Now you should review and tell me what you think. :D **


	2. Beginning Distractions

**Once again, I do NOT own Invader Zim. Enjoy chapter 2, everybody! **

Throughout the next week, Dib had been planning out all of the necessities he would need for the oncoming trip. He started to draw and outline maps of the mountains where he AND Zim would be skiing on. Of course, he figured, Zim would start off as a novice and it would be slow the first few days.

A malicious smile spread across his face and he chuckled darkly at the thought of seeing Zim flying through the air head first and hitting a rock in the snow. It was going to be a magnificent sight to witness. With that thought in mind, Dib had a new bounce in his step as he threw the rest of his clothes in his bag for the week.

He glanced towards his right and saw his snowboard leaning against his bed. He was very proud of that snowboard. A new addition to his small snowboard collection, Dib's height had increased since his last encounter with snowboarding and this new one he had purchased now touched the middle of his forehead when he stood in front of it.

The snowboard was a dark blue that represented all of the mysterious creatures that were out there in his world. He loved that color more than any other for its charming look and dangerous pose it phenomenally possessed. It curved on both ends and there was a sticker right in between where his feet would go. The logo was a giant eyeball that he had pasted on after being assigned as a member of the Swollen Eyeball Network.

Although he was sometimes labeled a nutcase in the book of his fellow members Disembodied Head, Tuna Ghost, Dark Booty, Wolf Man, etc. he was known to be of a help in some cases when there came a situation that needed most of the agents to help. "Well done, Agent Mothman." Dark Booty would say, and his chest would swell up proudly when congratulated on his hard work. At least it was better than what his father would ever give him.

Dib scoffed. _Dad will never notice me unless I bring up the phrase "Real Science!" to him. _He decided that he needed to stop thinking about his arrogant father and start heading over to Zim's house. Dib shuddered. He was never going to get used to that thought.

Throwing his pack over his right shoulder and picking up his snowboard to carry in his other hand, he headed out of his room and out the front door towards his enemy's house.

Dib fingered the two tickets in his pocket as he took steady strides in the snow. His toes were beginning to feel numb from the melted snow seeping through his boots. He was lucky that he had more than one pair of boots to bring on the trip.

Brushing past the creepy looking gnomes in Zim's yard—_how is Zim not freaking frightened by these things? —_ He knocked loudly on the door.

A loud crash suddenly emitted from inside and Dib jumped.

"GIR! I thought I _told _you to quit playing around and help me load up these boxes into the storage room!"

Even though the door muffled Zim's voice, Dib knew that he would never want to be next to Zim when he was shouting his incessant shrieks about his big head. Zim's voice tended to grate Dib's ears and give him a headache.

Fed up with being ignored, Dib knocked again; louder than before. However, Zim only continued to yell more at his robot and the said robot started to scream obnoxiously.

Dib yelped in pain as something singed his back and made a hole through his favorite trench coat. He swung around to see a gnome pointing a laser at him, eyes glowing red.

"Intruder," Its monotone voice droned out, charging up its laser again.

Dib panicked and began to bang on Zim's door, hitting the doorbell repeatedly and shouting through the door.

"ZIM, YOU MORONIC ALIEN! OPEN UP!"

Dib ducked this time, as the laser shot out and made a hole through the purple door where his head used to be. The shouting had stopped inside but Dib was busier trying to dodge every laser being shot at him.

He didn't notice when the door swung upon nor when a gloved hand fisted in the back of his coat, yanking him inside. Dib saw a flash of colors as he tumbled inside, head hitting the floor hard and feet slamming against the door.

He groaned. Cracking his eyes open, he noticed that everything around him was a bunch of blurred colors fuzzing up around the edges. He realized that his glasses must have been knocked off when he was pulled inside. It was in that moment an angry voice shouted above him.

"Dib-beast! Have you lost that idiotic mind of yours? You should have at least warned me that you had arrived! Instead, you almost have your brains shot out of your head from my upgraded security! Oh, you make me so mad! With your stupid head and…"

Dib blocked out Zim's voice after the first few sentences as he painfully pushed himself onto his knees and searched for his glasses. His headache had begun and Zim's voice wasn't helping at all. He began to become more frustrated when his hand only felt the empty floor around him.

He never noticed when Zim's voice had stopped its usual ranting and made an amused sound. He only kept searching for his glasses, stringing out curses under his breath when he did not have any luck.

"Looking for these?"

Dib's head snapped up to the blurry outline of Zim who, if he squinted hard enough, was dangling an object on his forefinger. The object swung back and forth and Zim's stupid smirk was growing wider.

Dib growled. That stupid bastard had better not break his glasses.

"Zim, give me my glasses," Dib nearly growled, trying to stay calm and collected for once. He held out his hand in a polite manner.

To his disappointment, Zim only stuck out his segmented tongue and chuckled that same chuckle he had heard a week ago. It disturbed Dib slightly.

"Why? What could you possibly want with this… doohickey?"

"Oh, I don't know. Perhaps I need them to _see _with?" Dib seethed out.

Zim made an unpleasant noise in the back of his throat. "You humans and your primitive pieces of technology. Hasn't your planet figured out a way to fix your eyes so that you wouldn't need to wear these horrible things?" Zim sounded agitated by this, clicking his tongue disappointingly.

Dib's mouth set into a frown by the insult. "We have and we aren't primitive. I just choose not to have them fixed. So that's why I wear them."

This time Dib stood up, facing the green and red blob in front of him.

The blob took a step back while holding the glasses close to his chest as if it were a prized treasure, smirk growing wider. Dib took another step forward and was met with another step back from the enemy.

"Give me my glasses _now, _Zim, and nobody gets hurt," Dib whispered hotly, taking more steps towards the alien invader.

Zim scoffed. "Oh, please. You? Performing a physical attack on me? Don't make me spit out my squeedily spooch."

Dib raised a brow at the strange metaphor but he had more pressing matters to attend to. He pointed threateningly at Zim.

"I'm warning you, Zim. Give them to me!"

Zim gave a bark of cruel laughter. "Oh yeah? You couldn't try harming a stupid plant let alone—"

However, Zim's retort was sharply cut off by Dib's figure leaping at him and knocking into him. Zim slammed into the floor, his air cut off by the weight of the boy on top of him. The glasses had flown out of his grip and skid across the floor.

Zim squirmed under Dib, mouth pressed tightly together as he continued to struggle. Dib grabbed Zim by the front of his uniform and shook him, eyes glaring furiously at his prey.

"Zim, I swear! If you even committed in making a crack in them, I'm gunna—"

Zim had managed to break an arm free and punch Dib in the face, sending him back onto the floor. But Dib quickly sprang back onto Zim, holding onto the bottom half of his body. He secured Zim's legs and Zim began to kick out, grabbing Dib's scythe hair and tugging on it.

Dib grit his teeth from the pain and suddenly, somehow, through the pain and blurriness, he spotted his glasses only a few feet away from Zim's right arm. Zim obviously had seen Dib's line of vision and made a grab for the vision tool.

Dib leaned all of his weight onto Zim's back, making it hard for Zim to reach. Zim grunted, inching his way towards the ocular device. A sharp pain in the back of his head spread through his body and Zim yowled like a cat as the tugging on his antenna continued.

Dib had grabbed an antenna as soon as he saw how close Zim was to his glasses and tugged. It was then that Zim began to bite and tear whatever piece of flesh he could find on Dib's body. This caused Dib to release his hold as Zim literally attacked Dib with his teeth and claws.

Dib rolled out of the way from Zim and shot out for his glasses. His hands met the cold metal and snatched them off the ground. Quickly putting them on, the blurred images disappeared and became clear, he saw Zim on all fours, back arched, hissing and spitting out curses in a language Dib couldn't understand.

Dib noticed that Zim looked like an angry cat just sprayed with water. If he had a tail, it would have been pointed straight up and pricked up in a furious fashion. The foreign language had stopped and now Zim was just hissing at Dib, antennas flat against his skull in an irritated way.

Dib scrambled to his feet, body aching in different areas from the battle on the ground, cheek swelling from the punch he took from Zim. Zim had stood up as well much quicker than Dib had.

Zim's hands had balled into fists and his red claret orbs were gleaming maliciously. He took a step forward at Dib and spoke out in a voice that held so much restrained fury that it would have seemed Dib was being yelled at if it weren't for the quite tone it possessed. It terrified Dib.

"Don't you _ever, _EVER pull or _touch _my antennas again. Got it, Dib?"

Dib swallowed nervously. He nodded shakily. Zim loosened just a touch and stood with his back straighter and his antennas didn't lie all the way against his head this time. Although Zim had traumatized Dib for the moment, Dib felt he needed to make a stand for himself on this.

"Fine, Zim. B-but don't ever take my glasses away from me again. Okay? It sucks being blind, you know."

Zim only nodded. "Very well, Dib. I won't take your doohickey away again."

"Uh, they're called glasses."

"Whatever."

Dib shook his head in an irritated fashion. He looked down at his bag that was packed up and ready to go.

"Besides wasting an hour fighting," Dib said. "Why don't we actually start leaving towards the resort? You said you had transportation."

Zim nodded. "I do, Dib-stink. Before we leave, we will need to haul these boxes into the storage room first."

He pointed to some boxes that looked like they were beaten with a stick and thrown into a muddy lake piled up on one another. Dib looked it up and down. _Huh, doesn't look too bad, _Dib thought. He rolled his shoulder absentmindedly and heard a pop in it. Biting down the sharp pain, he headed over to them and tried to lift one up.

The weight of the box engulfed him and he yelped as the box tumbled down onto the ground along with him. He pushed the box off of him and gasped as the air came flowing back into his lungs.

He flicked his eyes to Zim and saw him trying hard not to laugh but failing as a few snorts came out of his mouth. Dib glared at him.

"Jeez, Zim! How much stuff did you put in these boxes? They weight more than I do! It would be great if you could at least help me!" The heat pulsing through his veins was becoming unbearable.

Zim waved his hand off and walked up next to the fallen box. He then easily lifted the box up with both of his hands, grinning down at the boy. Dib rolled his eyes and muttered negatively about stupid Zim and his physical abilities.

One by one, they stacked the boxes into the storage closet that was filled with little trinkets Dib found fascinating. He wanted to explore more but Zim pushed him along. Once they were finished and panting from the work, Dib turned towards Zim.

"Okay. What about our transportation?"

This time Zim's grin broadened and he snickered as if he was hiding a secret that Dib didn't know, which… he probably was. Dib folded his arms across his chest.

"What's so funny?" He said, clearly not amused.

Zim's snickering stopped and he smiled at Dib.

"We will be using my ship, stink beast."

"… You're kidding." Dib's gut clenched. Zim shook his head.

"Nope. My ship is compatible with transportation and is completely safe as long as we are camouflaged from the humans."

"You do realize there is a flaw in your plan," Dib said.

"Oh? And what is that?"

Dib began to tick off his fingers.

"One, there is no place to park that thing outside the hotel we are staying in. Two, somebody is bound to find it because that place is so packed. And three, how can nobody not notice a giant ship landing in the middle of a ski resort?" He shouted the last sentence, waving his arms about.

"Hmm. You do have a point there, stink meat. However, we do not need to worry about any of those three things possibly because we aren't going to be going to a hotel in the middle of a ski resort where there are hundreds of humans roaming about," Zim said, grin growing wider.

Now Dib was just confused. What the hell was he talking about? No hotel? No humans? No ski resort? Huh? What? He stood there gaping at Zim. His eye twitched when he saw that grin growing wider.

"You're… not making any sense. What do you mean we aren't going to a hotel? I registered us for a room at the hotel we are staying in!" Dib was going out of his mind trying to figure this out.

"Human, listen to me! We will be staying right here in Zim's base! We are going to move the base in a secluded area up in the mountains somewhere possibly _near _the resort where no humans will be lurking about. Zim has it all planned out, already." His antenna twitched with agitation.

Dib, meanwhile, was trying to piece together what Zim had just told him and have it make sense. Most of it had holes embedded in it that he just couldn't figure out how to fix.

"Move… the base? How? This place is huge! There is no way this will fit in your—"

Zim practically smacked Dib in the face with a small object he had in his hand. He waved it in front of Dib's face and shouted, "This! This is how!"

Dib snatched it and analyzed it. It was a small oval looking purple device that had a crevice that separated two pieces that were still adjunct to one another. There was a pink button on one side of the device that just begged to be pushed. He went to push it when Zim snatched it away from him.

"You will see what that button does in a few minutes. Right now I want you to gather your things and place them in an area of this house where you will remember they will be. Then we shall head out. GIR!"

A metallic head popped out of the toilet in the kitchen and the eyes turned from teal to a deep red. GIR saluted, voice deepening.

"Yes, my master?"

"Come on! It's time to go," Zim ordered, marching out of the door with a screeching robot behind him. Dib followed but stopped in his tracks.

Dib grabbed Zim by the shoulder and turned him around. "Hang on! Your robot is coming with us?" Dib was put off by this major setback.

"Of course he is! He lives here, doesn't he? Now get your filthy hands off of me and let's go!" Zim grabbed Dib and dragged him out the door.

Once outside, Zim looked around to see if any humans were happening to walk by. Once the coast was clear, he grabbed out his wig and contacts. The contacts were a deep violet color and Dib decided that he honestly liked his deep red eyes instead of those obvious fake eyes staring at him. He popped in the contacts with a wince and placed the wig to cover his antennas.

Then Zim took out the device, placed it on the ground in front of the house, and pressed the pink button. He ran back towards Dib and grabbed his arm to back him up.

"Stand back," he said, eyeing the mechanical device.

There was a mechanical whir sound and immediately a hole, the size of a softball, appeared on the device that began glowing bright blue. One by one, the gnomes and animal ornaments on Zim's house were being sucked into the device. The walls of the house disappeared and everything that was inside was squeezed inside the device as well. Even the fence that ran along the house had disappeared and all that was left was the ship that stood out defiantly among the dirt circle it rested upon.

The whole process wasn't silent either. In fact, Dib had to cover his ears from the noises being protruded out of that thing. _How the heck did Zim manage to do this without disturbing anyone when he first got here? _Dib wondered, looking down at the device Zim had picked up now.

Zim stuffed it in his uniform and motioned Dib over. GIR began to yell in excitement, the robot now running around Dib crazily. Dib grabbed the robot by the arm and dragged him over towards the ship Zim called the Voot Runner. The small purple ship opened the clear covering wide open for the three to hop in. Zim climbed in first, shaking the snow off of his boots before entering. GIR followed, hopping in head first and landing on Zim's head. The wig slipped off half way and GIR giggled as he ruffled it up. Dib climbed in after, squeezing in with them. He thanked god that it was a short trip up to Flooby's Ski Resort. Otherwise he would have gone mad with the small amount of space there was in the Voot.

The cover closed and Zim pressed a button to start up the ship. Dib felt the rumble of the ship beneath his feet as they were lifted off the ground and shot into the air. Clouds passed by Dib's vision as they were shot into the sky.

**Hope that your guy's brains exploded with enthusiasm. This chapter is shorter than the last but have no fear! More chapters will be published! **

**Chapter 3 will be coming soon so tune in! **

**Please review and make me a happy cabbage. :)**


	3. Awkward Shiptalk

**I'm back! I'm trying to update as soon as I can and I am feeling lenient towards you readers out there so feel honored! Enjoy chapter 3! **

_Italicized _is Dib's thoughts OR for emphasis when in dialogue.

The vast amount of baby blue was the only thing Dib could see now but they weren't so high up that a human's line of sight couldn't see them.

Dib tugged on the sleeve of Zim's shirt, still looking around the area they were flying in. "Hey, we're camouflaged so no one can see us, right?"

After pressing a few more buttons in the ship, Zim turned to Dib with a look of amusement.

"Yes, we are indeed. There is no way a human can see us in my new and improved upgraded invisibility system! I am amazing!" He threw up his arm as if to emphasize his incredibility to upgrade cloaking devices.

Dib rolled his eyes for what seemed like the tenth time that day. After a whole minute of clutching his head, trying to block out the noise GIR was making with every item he saw in sight, Zim suddenly snatched the robot and opened up the lid on his head. In a few seconds, GIR's eyes had turned black as if he were a shutdown computer.

At first Dib thought Zim killed him, but Zim must have caught Dib's wide eyed look because he muttered, "Dismantled him for now."

Dib made an 'o' with his mouth and turned to look outside again. However, the steady silence in the Voot was beginning to turn uncomfortable. Dib shifted in his seat. After Zim had stored GIR in the back of the Voot, Dib had a bit more room to sit next to Zim.

Another minute had past and Dib was going insane with the silence. He cleared his throat nervously, Zim's wig twitched with the broken silence.

"You know," Dib said. "You should have at least told me that we were taking your ship and staying in your base. I did make reservations for that hotel and all."

Zim turned towards Dib, an eye quirked up at this.

"Did you pay for the filthy place?"

"Well, no, but—"

"Then stop worrying, Stink meat. I'm sure you'll find Zim's incredible base to be more amazing than any other stinking hotel you were ever in," Zim said, setting his ship on autopilot.

He leaned back with his arms behind his head, giving Dib a flamboyant look. Dib's eye twitched and he averted his gaze away from that annoying smirk. It was then he realized…

Dib turned towards Zim. "Zim, do you have a ski or snowboard with you that you're using? Or are you renting one down there?"

Dib suddenly felt stupid asking the question as Zim gave him an affronted look.

"You think I _want _to go down there where a bunch of DISGUSTING humans are all clumped together in a big meaty mess? I'd rather be eaten by a Malkling! Oh, and I do have a snowboard stashed away just for Zim."

"You do? How'd you get one?" Dib crossed his legs in a more comfortable position.

Zim picked at his claws. "After analyzing those instruments, I decided to design my own. I would have made it more advanced with a structural floatation device and boosters built in but I decided to go ahead and be primitive like you silly humans. You know, just so I could learn how you learn on a regular and non-special snowboard."

Being Zim, Dib knew that Zim was just being paranoid about the human race and he let it go just for that. However, something else caught his attention from Zim's earlier comments.

"What's a… Malkling?"

Zim leaned back more into his seat with his arms folded across his chest. He tilted his head towards Dib with an all knowing smirk.

"Oh, so you would like to know what a Malkling is, eh?"

"Well, yeah, otherwise I wouldn't have asked, stupid."

Zim gave Dib a look as if he had just committed blasphemy against his Tallest. Dib thanked the lord that the ship was on autopilot because of Zim's lack of attention towards flying it. Zim growled.

"You're stupid… stupid!" Zim mocked with some struggle.

"This is dumb. Are you going to tell me or not, Space Boy?"

"Then quit mumbling out dooky and listen to Zim!"

Dib cursed and managed to sit still and listen instead of throttling the invader right now.

"Good. Let's make this interesting. I want you to do something for me," Zim said, now completely facing Dib and crossing his legs in his seat.

"Try thinking of the most horrible and evil thing that you—or perhaps all humans—hate… besides me." Zim narrowed his eyes at the last sentence after Dib immediately opened his mouth.

Dib thought about this. Well, if he were to put this into any human's perspective then his automatic understanding of a most vile thing they hated and feared was death itself. Nobody wanted to die. And with that, Dib comprehended profoundly that it would make sense for everyone to despise death. He was only guessing, of course.

However, if he were to put this into his perspective then it was of no doubt that the most evil and coldhearted aspect of life Dib ever came across, besides Zim, was the feeling of loneliness.

Someone inside of his head chuckled darkly. _Yeah, and guess who helped cause your loneliness? Was it… humanity perhaps? _

Dib immediately blocked out the voice, thinking how foolish that sounded. It may be a bit… true BUT he knew it wasn't entirely their fault. Not all humans were coldhearted and ignorant towards him, were they?

There had to be at least someone— _oh, please! _That dark voice had entered his mind again, pushing against the barriers.

_Wake up out of that crappy unrealistic mind of yours and look around you, Dib! Those humans— those fleshy organisms all HATE you! How many times have you tried to get them to listen to you? But will they listen? Hell no! They're only too ignorant and self-centered to even TRY pretending that you exist! _

Dib tried pushing back that part of his mind. He really desperately tried, but the voice had already engulfed his inner head and sucked it in like it was a juice box. Without knowing it, his hands had clutched tightly onto his armrest.

_Face it, Dib. You're alone. Nobody pays attention to you. Not even your own family! Only ONE person has ever paid attention to you for the fun of it. You know who that is? Take a guess._

No. Dib grit his teeth.

_You know damn well who it is! Why are you denying this fact! Why, because he's your enemy? Is that it? It's been in front of you this whole time! Don't act stupid and give into denial! Zim is the only one you've got and you know it! _

Dib was literally on the brink of screaming back at his putrid conscious when a voice interrupted his mental argument.

"Dib-filth, it's been over five minutes and you still look unsure as to whether or not you loathe something." Zim cocked his head to the side. He leaned over and gave a sharp poke to Dib's temple.

"Is there something going on in that big head of yours?"

Although Dib heard Zim's mildly concerned voice, it was hard to tell what he was saying when his thoughts were still trying to disperse. However, at the feel of the hard poke to his head, Dib felt an unknowing rage at the contact.

"What? What do you want?" Dib snapped, glaring at Zim.

Zim growled at the pile of venom Dib spat at him.

"Idiotic human! Do you want to know what a Malkling is or not, Dib-smell?"

Giving up, Dib sighed loudly and dropped his head onto the dash of the ship in front of him. He unclenched his hands and waved his hand carelessly at Zim.

"Yeah, sure, whatever. Go ahead and tell me."

Zim ignored the slumped figure and said, "Now take that thought and intensify it by a thousand degrees. A Malkling is worse, Dib-pig. Oh, much, MUCH worse. It is feared by many races in the universe; even Irkens."

Lifting his head off the dash, Dib eyed Zim curiously.

"Wow, it'd be kinda funny to see your reaction when being encountered by one. What do they look like anyway?"

Zim ignored the first sentence. "Actually, Malklings are the offspring of the Malk race; more poisonous and deadly at that age, but I will say that they have a menacing and hideous appearance, eh, so I've been told."

Dib was still very intrigued by these creatures. It wasn't often he got to listen to a story about beasts from outer space.

"Does this race have any purpose for living? What are its motivations? What planet are they from?"

Zim cut Dib off with his hand meeting Dib's cheek. Dib rubbed the slightly stinking cheek and glared at Zim.

"Enough! Those are your only questions I'm going to answer, all right?" Zim cleared his throat.

"The Malk race survives by feasting on any living thing crawling about. It's favorite—and rare might I add— meal is an Irken. Disgusting, no? Irken blood is probably the sweetest life sustaining fluid the universe has _ever_ created. No surprise there. Anyhow, back in our revolutionary times, we used these beasts for execution sources on Irken's found guilty of treason or slaves that we have left over after conquering a planet.

I'm sure we don't have those horrible creatures anymore but we have managed to make as many extinct as possible with our new and improved weaponry. We have no clue as to which planet or where they evolved from. We can only hope there are none left near us in the galaxy. Does that answer your stupid questions, human?"

Dib pondered, first thought going to a Malkling eating Zim's face off to another image of him drinking a cup full of Zim's blood. The thought was sickening. Dib couldn't help but feel amused on the idea of draining his enemy's blood and selling each can of it for a few bucks.

He almost snickered at this. An unusual thought popped up into his mind and he couldn't help but smile maliciously at the skit he was about to perform towards the alien.

"So," Dib drawled out, turning towards Zim with his eyes narrowed and smile growing. He saw Zim give him an apprehensive stare.

Dib leaned forward. "Mind if I have a taste of that sweet blood of yours?" He was only teasing; he knew that. That still didn't give him an excuse for sounding so seductive, which he wasn't trying to do.

Dib knew it sounded a little too sumptuous on his part but he had to give himself credit after seeing Zim start to perspire and grow uncomfortable under his stare.

Zim coughed nervously into his hand, darting his eyes around the ship.

"Eh, I-I think the Dib should stop asking idiotic questions and keep his smelly head out of Zim's personal belongings." Zim gave him a snide look before turning his head away from Dib with a pout.

Dib had never felt so exhilarated before to see his enemy—HIS enemy— break out in a sweat and squirm uncomfortably because him. True, all of their fights put excitement into his life but this felt very different when seeing the alien weak. It made his heart race much faster.

Seeing his enemy look weak made Dib feel like he was filled with helium and giddy all over. This feeling was new. This feeling was a drug. A drug Dib decided at this moment that he didn't want to give up. It was then he began to form new tactics in his mind to be able to receive the same feeling of triumph.

Dib couldn't help it when he stood up from his seat and inched closer to Zim, purposely smiling broadly while he clasped his hands in an innocent way. Denying his craziness towards people would definitely be a disadvantage if he were to pose this look.

"What's the matter, Zim? Am I making you… uncomfortable? Frightened? Weak kneed?"

As Dib advanced, Zim backed more into his seat, pushing himself as far as he could in the soft cushion behind him, freaking out.

Dib felt like licking his lips as a dramatic effect towards Zim. That look of pure terror and weakness on Zim's face… it looked… delicious. He saw Zim gulp and draw his knees up to his chest.

"D-dib? What… what's wrong with you? Do you have the brain worms? Get away from ZIIIIM!" Zim lashed out and pushed onto Dib's chest with all his might. Dib stumbled back and landed back into his chair, startled.

Dib cursed again and rubbed the back of his head where it had hit the back of the chair hard. Man, why did Zim have to be so crazy?

He looked over at Zim who had now taken control of the ship once more and was staring moodily ahead, giving the glass a few hard glares.

Dib now felt awkward. He had no idea why he had done that in the first place and, apparently, neither had Zim. His only reason was to see Zim freak out, and that wasn't even a legitimate excuse.

"Um…" Dib said nervously.

"Just let it go, Dib-beast. You were clearly delusional for some reason and must have imagined that Zim was a ham sandwich. Are you in need for foodening?" Zim gave a sharp gaze towards Dib.

"A bit," Dib mumbled. He looked out the ship's front just in time to see snow covered mountains. He almost sighed with relief. Finally, a way to get out of this tension and heat filled ship.

Zim lowered the ship a few yards and Dib could now see humans skiing and snowboarding down the mountains gracefully. They looked like innocent tiny ants on an anthill from up where they were. Occasionally falling over and laying there on the flat surface like a dead animal in the road.

Dib stumbled as Zim jerked the ship over towards the left side of the mountain. The ship careened towards the tallest mountain that Dib could see and continued its way towards the destination.

"Why pick the tallest mountain?" Dib pointed out.

"I'm sure that there are less humans excavating around this area than in the lower regions. We don't want anyone finding our base in the middle of a populated mountain, now, do we?"

Dib looked around and noticed that Zim was right. There were hardly any mobile black spots flowing down this particular mountain. But there was a flaw in this. Dib knew that the higher the elevation, the colder it gets. There was probably going to be a snowstorm coming soon and will no doubt start freezing everything up.

"Uh, you're sure that your base will withstand any snowstorms and be able to keep us warm, right?"

Zim gave a frustrated sigh. "Questions! Questions! Where does your filthy head keep getting these pointless questions! Of course my base is full proof! Why ask when you know Irken technology is superior!"

"It's called curiosity, Zim."

"Yeah, well, curiosity killed the moose."

"Cat. Why are you so stressed about a few questions anyway? I thought you'd be glad to answer with that egotistical mind of yours."

Zim slammed his fist down onto the control panel.

"Zim is not stressed!"

The ship gave a lurch and Zim caught himself before landing all over the controls of the ship. He steered the ship back to its original course and they slowly descended at the highest point of the mountain. Dib noticed that Zim looked a little too tense than normal and he looked like he would literally tear apart someone who dared try messing with him.

Zim's wig had somehow ended up falling halfway off his head, revealing his antennas, and lavender eyes were now transfixed on the view in front of him. His body was rigid and his zipper sharp teeth were gritted in annoyance.

Dib leaned back in his seat and chuckled to himself. Oh, yeah. Zim definitely lacked stress. Zim turned his head towards Dib with a stoned stare.

"What?" He snapped out like a cobra ready to strike.

"When I define stress… you're pretty much my main example," Dib joked with raillery.

Zim snarled but said nothing.

They lowered down into a vacant area that was located between two high mountains of snow and ice. Dib felt his ears begin to close and scream against the pressure none too kindly welcoming into his system.

He needed some gum.

So instead he gave a few fake yawns to try and pop them back open again. He didn't have the best of luck. Dib couldn't help but send Zim an envious stare. The alien was lucky he didn't have ears to experience the kind of pain he was going through.

The ship rocked a few times before stabilizing itself in the freezing snow. The climate wasn't too bad. A bit chilly, but the sun was fixated in the sky with rays of warmth beaming down on the two as they climbed out of the ship.

They were on a nice clean hill up on the mountains where he could easily snowboard down through the very few trees planted there on the silky sheets of undisturbed frost. Soon there will be snowboard tracks all over this mountain.

Dib could barely spot a ski lift just below this mountain. From what he could infer, it was probably the highest ski lift that the resort had to offer. He was fine with that.

There was a slight rumble beneath his feet that had Dib jumping. He spun around to see Zim's house rebuilding itself in place. Wires sprang out from the sides of the house and buried themselves deep in the snowy banks for stability.

After a few moments of Dib's gawking and the annoying whirring of mechanics, the house stood tall and clashed against the white background with the soft green that emitted from the house in a glowing aura.

"Dib-stink!" Zim had called against the gentle wind blowing around them. "Zim will not tolerate with having a dead Dib frozen to death try teaching him this pathetic sport! Get in here!"

With that said Zim stormed into the house and slammed the door behind him, knocking off some snow that had already gathered on the roof.

Dib followed, looking around at the whisper of nature surrounding him. He stepped up to the door mat, raising an eyebrow at the words printed: WIPE FILTH. Zim has the oddest sense of aesthetic décor with his base.

Dib laid his hand on the already cold door knob, turned it, and entered the base, shutting the door behind him.

**Zim: Review now or taste my wrath! **

**Dib: Shut up, Zim. Although reviews would be awesome. **

**Thanks for reading! Chapter 4 coming soon... **


	4. Bolts of a Thousand Arguments

**After an agonizing long month from which I've endured many encounters with clingy relatives and party events, I've have finally managed to produce... THIS! Chapter 4! Hell ya! So, I've been getting questions from those awesome people who reviewed this story. Is this going to be a ZADR? My answer: No. Although it has proven to be a bit dificult seeing as how I read it. However, I will remain loyal by reminding you out there that this is ZADF only. And it's not that fluffy type of ZADF either that makes it look like crap. I'm sticking to the characterization with angst and humor! :D**

**So anyway, I'm back. October is literally the busiest month for me. A bunch of shit happens that I can't control. Enjoy this chapter... OR ELSE! XD **

Over the next few hours the two rivals, with their now agreed pact, began to organize their items for what they would need by tomorrow. Dib had stowed away his snowboard while Zim puzzled over the type of clothing he was required to wear.

Dib admitted that the outfit Zim had first worn didn't look too bad on the alien either. However, by come the second outfit, Dib couldn't help but burst out laughing when Zim came out of the dressing room all clumped up in the over attire of scarves and coats. He looked so… ridiculous.

Zim sent a glare over at the boy and huffed.

After taking a deep breath to calm his uncontrollable laughter, Dib came up behind Zim, still chuckling, and put a hand on his padded shoulder laughing out, "Oh, come on, Zim! You look like a wrapped up cucumber!"

Zim shouted, "Do not make fun of Zim!"

Zim had activated GIR much to Dib's displeasure.

The first thing GIR took into action was knocking past the two and plowing into the snow head first, screaming all the while. Dib could tell that GIR was going to get used to this environment very quickly.

Zim ordered Dib to go fetch GIR from out of the snow after a few minutes. Dib protested about going out in the freezing cold and Zim retaliated with a swift kick to Dib's butt, sending the boy hurling outside and sliding into the snow.

Dib growled and began spitting out clumps of snow out of his mouth. GIR, meanwhile, was attempting to make a snow angel in a nice clear patch. Dib stomped over, picked up the robot by the metal antenna on his head, and stormed back into the house.

"WEEEE!" GIR shouted, swinging back and forth in Dib's tight grip.

GIR clambered onto Dib's head and began squishing Dib's cheeks together, making fish lips.

"You saved me, Muffin Man! Now all the hotdogs can go play together in a squishy bowl of syrup! Cookies!"

To say that Dib was aggravated was a bit of an understatement. He glared at GIR and yanked him off his head once more by his antenna. GIR all the while smiled dumbly at his holder. Dib sighed once the stupid look was thrown his way and lightly put the robot down onto the floor, trying to force himself to stay calm.

GIR immediately ran towards Zim, who was buried halfway into a big cardboard box filled with outfits, and jumped into the box to "surprise" his master.

This mini attack only induced angry shouting from the alien. Dib winced. If this was how it was in the freakish house everyday then Dib was immediately regretting agreeing to the treaty. Dib let out a long drawn out breath before slumping down onto the pink couch, hand scrambling around for the remote.

The voices had quieted down and now the only sound was the ruffling of clothes and the off tune humming coming from GIR. Dib decided to relax for the moment, smiling when he finally found the remote off the side of the couch. He heard Zim make a short, little squeal of triumph out of nowhere.

Dib's curiosity got the better of him and he looked off to the side to see what Zim was so excited about. The alien was currently smiling with joy at the outfit he was holding up. Zim caught Dib's gaze and his smile quickly turned into a snide smirk.

Zim turned towards Dib and held the outfit up so that it hung from his neck down.

"Zim likes this outfit. It's stylish and oh so deliciously warm. What do you think, Dib-let? Should the amazing Zim wear this artificial clothing to match his amazingness?"

_Dib-let? Oh great, now the jerk is just trying to make fun of me. _Dib thought sourly. Dib ignored the stupid nickname for now.

Looking over the outfit he saw a long sleeved shirt with a bright crimson color adorning the front of it. Black horizontal stripes covered the shirt. The snow pants were a stark black color. Dib nearly rolled his eyes when he realized that the outfit looked exactly like Zim's invader uniform.

"It's fine," Dib grumbled out, facing the TV again.

However, Zim had marched over and stood in front of Dib so as to block the TV. His hand fisted on his hip and he was scowling.

"Fine? FINE? It's grandeur! Surly anything that Zim picks is going to be amazing, no?"

"Zim, it looks exactly like the outfit you have on."

"Which is exactly why you shall never see a flaw here! Only I, ZIM, am worthy enough to claim it! In other words, I call dibs on it, human!"

Dib pointed at the clothing. "I wouldn't be caught dead in that thing, space boy, and if you end up freezing your antennae off out there, don't come crying to me. Now move so I can watch some TV."

Dib motioned for Zim to move out of the way but Zim didn't budge.

Instead his chin jutted up very pompously while boasting out, "Nonsense! We Irkens have very adaptable skin temperatures that will warm our bodies up if ever introduced to such degrading weather such as _snow._" Zim gave a cocky smile towards Dib.

Dib rolled his eyes. "And yet you _still _have an ego the size of a planet whenever you talk about your Irken pride. Now could you move out of the way, Zim? This is getting annoying."

Zim crossed his arms and blew a raspberry over at Dib.

"No."

"Oh, way to show your maturity, space boy! What's next? Forcing me to sit on a tack? Oh, wait, that's already happened before!"

Zim frowned at Dib's sarcastic tone.

"You had that coming, human."

"You turned be into bologna! That's ten times worse than what I did to you!"

"In case you've forgotten, meat is like acid to me!"

"It's not like I was supposed to know that in the first place!"

Dib had stood up to glare across at Zim who was steaming with hate at Dib's words.

"Right, next time I'll just shove your ginormous head in a bucket of acid and see how it affects you!"

"Oh, come on! You know the acid would corrode my head! I didn't know that something as simple as meat was going to melt you face off!"

"Then I guess you didn't know that I'm immune to your acid! I could practically bathe in it if I wanted to!"

Zim panted a bit from the shouting and straightened back up to glare at Dib.

"I—wow… that would actually be neat if I knew you weren't allergic to water and meat."

"And I'd find your knack for never giving up interesting if your head wasn't so big and annoying!"

Dib continued to stare at Zim with an expressionless face before cracking a smile and finally exploding with laughter. Zim snarled, clenching his fisted gloves.

"What's so funny, human! TELL MEEE!"

Dib finally controlled his laughter down to a few chuckles here and there before laughing out, "Look at us! This has been going on for three years now, Zim! I mean, don't you think it's a bit odd that even after three years we're still too stubborn to even let one of us watch TV? Don't you think it's odd that I'm even over at your base agreeing to teach you how to learn a sport you could care less about?"

Dib narrowed his eyes down on Zim, taking a step forward.

"What happened, Zim? What on earth influenced you to stop your most passionate desire to take over the world just for something as petty to you as snowboarding, huh?"

Zim glowered, taking a cautious step back.

"That is NONE of your business, Dib-pig."

Dib threw up his hands in frustration. "What, did GIR talk some sense into you? Did a meteorite hit your head and suddenly you just had a really strong impulse to go snowboarding? Or did your Tallest decide that the almighty Zim is in need for a vacation? Huh? Is that it?"

Dib gasped as he was suddenly shoved up against a wall by a pair of iron hands. He winced and opened his eyes to see Zim's livid face bearing down upon him. A sleek, agile spider leg came out of his PAK and the point of it pressed into his throat. Dib gulped.

"Don't you _dare _mention that name to me ever again," Zim hissed out.

"What name?" Dib chocked out in surprise.

Zim ignored him. "And watch your back, Dib. I ought to slit your disgusting throat right now but I'll just wait until your whole planet is begging for mercy under my control. When I rule this forsaken planet, NONE of you humans will be able to—"

Zim suddenly cut off his dangerous sentence to stare blankly at Dib as if someone had punched him in the face for a moment before his spider leg disappeared inside his PAK and Zim was writhing on the floor screaming.

Dib was prepared for the insult but was not prepared when he heard the whirring noise in Zim's PAK and the alien begin to twitch as his voice died out. He certainly was not prepared when he saw Zim start seizing upon the floor in front of him screaming out in obvious pain as he saw wave after wave of agonizing shocks run through Zim's form.

Dib could only stare at the horrendous sight with wide eyes.

_How ironic, _Dib mused in his head. _To think I was the one being threatened with a sharp instrument at my throat in the first place. _

Dib felt a strong urge to point and laugh at Zim's contorting figure. Yet he couldn't bring himself to do it. He could only stare, eye twitching now and then. At last, he forced himself to smirk at the sight, though a weak smirk.

But then Dib began to feel uneasy when the electrifying shocks continued while Zim screamed.

_So what, you're just going to leave him there writhing in pain? Come on, Dib! He didn't even do anything to you! Sure, he threatened your planet but isn't that of the norm between you two? Don't just stand there and watch! _The voice from earlier popped up in a commanding voice.

Dib forced himself to stay still, pushing against the voice.

_No… no, it'll stop. It should stop in a few seconds… just give it a few seconds…_

However, Dib couldn't help but cringe at the pain Zim was going through. Dib instantly hated this feeling. He wanted nothing more but to have Zim stop taunting him with his screams.

The shocks kept coming, sending jolts of lightning through Zim's spine and making him claw the floor for support through the adversity. Zim was starting to go numb through the pain and there was a black fuzzy outline starting to cloud his eyes now. He thought he had programmed his PAK to only give the shock for only a few seconds. How dare his PAK malfunction on him now! By this amount of time he'll end up shortening his life support if the shocks keep going.

_ And that idiot dirt child is probably enjoying every second of this! _Zim thought bitterly, throat growing sore from the screaming. He gritted his teeth to stop his screaming.

Dib's heart was hammering and he couldn't take it any longer. He could only think of one rational idea that was all too familiar with him: Start screaming at Zim.

"Zim! Zim, get up! Q-quit it! This isn't funny, you know! I—god, you stupid alien!"

Dib knelt down next to Zim to try and find out what could be the problem. He didn't want to get too close or he'll receive that same amount of pain as well. So he began to search Zim's still thrashing body for any signs to shut the damn thing off.

"H-hold on," Dib said, worry gnawing his insides as he mentally cursed himself for doing this.

"Masta!" A scream from the other side of the room caught Dib's ears through Zim's groans and whimpers spilling out of his mouth.

GIR was pointing at Zim with a look of shock crossing his features. He clearly wasn't used to Zim being in such a state. "You's all shocky!" GIR wailed again, now looking a bit worried.

Without thinking, Dib reached over and yanked GIR into his arms. He inadvertently thrust GIR in Zim's direction where Zim was already starting to lose consciousness to the pain.

The fusion with the metal and electrical shocks instantly began shooting sparks from both Zim and GIR. Dib felt a sharp pain shoot up his arm but he kept holding onto GIR as if his life depended on it. There was a mini explosion before Dib was thrown back until his back forcefully hit the wall. Looking up he saw that GIR's head was missing from his body and his body had somehow ended up on the other far end of the room.

Dib darted his eyes furiously around the room until he spotted Zim lying limply on his side facing away from Dib near the TV.

With his body still overcome with tingles from the shock, Dib stood up on shaky legs that immediately gave out underneath him and he crumbled to the floor. Dib groaned. So instead he decided to crawl his way over towards Zim. He moved through the debris and thin layer of smoke that rotated around the living room. He coughed a few times.

"Z-Zim?" Dib asked quietly. The name sounded foreign on his tongue.

The closer Dib got, the more clearly he could see how damaged Zim looked. The sight didn't look all too well.

Zim's uniform was torn in various places and slightly charcoaled with black soot. His green skin was burnt in small areas that needed tending to. His PAK was releasing smoke into the air from the internal shocking it went through. There were very few cuts on his head that he could see from the back of it but Dib could tell there may be a serious cut on the front side of his face.

Balancing on his knees, Dib leaned over Zim and cautiously put his hands on the alien's shoulder to turn him over. Dib let out a shaky breath that he just realized he had been holding when he saw that there was no serious damage inflicted on Zim's face. A few minor cuts here and there, but Dib knew that Zim heals up fast. It was a special alien talent that he owned in which Dib was envious for.

Zim was passed out. There was a contorted look in his face still but he seemed more relaxed now that the pain was over. Being careful with his PAK, Dib adjusted Zim so that his arm could slip underneath his legs and the other wrapped around his torso next to his PAK. Dib grunted as he tried to stand up once again with the weight of Zim in his arms.

_I should just drag him, _Dib thought aggravatingly. Zim would most likely blame him for this mess.

He stumbled a bit while walking towards the couch. Zim was a bit heavier than he thought. Finally, he arrived at his destination and carefully lay Zim down on the couch, making sure his PAK wasn't going to get in the way of lying in such a position.

Dib took a step back to scan over the supine alien. He took a heavy sigh as he himself decided to collapse on the couch. He didn't even bother looking GIR's way when the robot's body began searching for his lost head.

_Zim is going to kill me, _he thought pessimistically once again. His legs were still shaking from the painful shock he received. He glanced over at GIR and saw that the body was still having trouble finding its missing head. Dib figured the robot will be able to find it soon enough. He looked over at Zim this time and took in the minor burns still covering his jade green face.

He knew that he should at least patch up those wounds while the alien was still passed out. Deciding to avoid a grouchy Zim when waking up with burning wounds, Dib, after shaking the numbness from his legs, stood up and made his way towards the kitchen. He searched through drawers and cupboards around the area.

Dib stooped down onto his hands and knees and looked under the sink. "He's got to have medical supplies here somewhere," he muttered lowly, becoming frustrated when having no luck whatsoever.

"Whatever you're looking for, I could help out with."

Dib froze completely. His heart skipped a few beats as the deep voice reached his ears. Hand quivering in mid reach, he slowly brought his head out from under the sink and craned it around to feverishly dart his eyes for the source of the sound.

"Who… who are you? Show yourself!" Dib's voice wavered but he tried to act as stoic as possible. Mentally he was panicking at the prospect of figuring out that he wasn't alone in the house with a dead weight alien and a headless robot.

He heard a deep sigh from above him and he jumped, looking up towards the ceiling with tightening fists.

"Geez, no need to be so jumpy. I'm Zim's computer. It really sucks working for him most of the time but I suppose I'll help out." The mechanical voice sounded bored.

Dib let out a shaky sigh when the sudden realization struck him like a brick to the face.

"O-oh. Wow, frightened by a computer. That's new, Dib," he muttered. He stood up.

"Um… computer, could you show me where the medical supplies are?" He wasn't sure if the computer would actually comply with Dib's pathetic demand. (He seemed to really not have the hang of demanding technology to do his bidding like Zim does).

"Sure, I guess so." The computer droned out the words slowly as if talking to a five year old. Dib was a bit annoyed by this.

Suddenly, mechanical arms descended from the ceiling covered in a tangle of wires. The arms went towards the wall adjacent to the couch and began to tap the wall in different areas before a small blue light appeared on the wall. A mechanical finger pressed it and out popped a secret opening in the wall with a hiss and smoke billowing around it. The arm thrust its hand in and retrieved a rather large looking grey case with an Irken symbol printed on it.

The arms held the case gingerly in its hands before passing it over to Dib. Dib took a short look at it before taking the case with both hands clasped around the handle. His arms sagged from the weight but he managed to carry it over towards the unconscious alien. The mechanical arms disappeared.

Wondering how to exactly do this, Dib made a decision to make this as easy for him as possible. He turned Zim around so that his head was facing the other side of the couch and towards where he was sitting. Dib placed the case on the couch beside him and, with a bit of effort, rest Zim's head on his lap reluctantly.

Zim's eye twitched from the shift but made no other movement.

"Wow. Zim really is out of it," Dib announced quietly to himself.

He opened the case with a soft click and looked over the bandages and funny looking vials filled with different colored substances. There were also syringes inside the case along with hexagonal shaped containers filled with God knows what and other materials Dib couldn't understand.

Deciding to go simple, Dib grabbed a sanitizing tube that cleansed the wounds along with a roll of bandages. He delicately dabbed on the liquid, which caused Zim to twitch some more, and wrapped them up with gauze. It took a bit of time but Dib managed to cleanse the burn marks on Zim's face.

He looked over his work and smiled at the surprisingly good job he had achieved in the making. Closing the case, he set it aside and moved out from underneath Zim with an uneasy look etched in his face. He slid from the couch and now noticed GIR twisting his newly found head onto its rightful place. Dib hadn't expected the shriek to come out of GIR once the head was twisted back on.

"MARY!"

Dib lunged at the robot and clapped a hand over the metal mouth, wincing when there was a sting coming from his palm from the hard slap.

"GIR… you need to be quiet because Zim is… sick. Um, his tummy hurts and he wants it quiet in here. Can you do that?"

Dib wasn't sure if a robot with an IQ equivalent to a hotdog would be able to comprehend what he was asking him, but Dib seemed to underestimate the thing when GIR's eyes set into a worry gaze as he looked over at Zim.

"His… his tummy is hurting, Milk man? Oh, I don't wants masta to be all sicky no mores. Will you help him with your squishy head, Mary?"

GIR was taking this more seriously than Dib had thought he would. And the thought of GIR depending on him to help Zim didn't fit to well with his stomach. It made him nervous and fidgety to think about.

Dib nodded and said, "Yeah, don't worry. I'll take care of him."

GIR smiled broadly and looked as if he were going to scream until Dib brought up a finger to signal him to be quite. GIR got the message and nodded his head.

Dib smiled.

**Sooooo... mmmyup. Nothing much to say here. **

**Poor Dib, never seems to catch a break. And Zim is himself as always. **

**Although to you folks out there who can guess what the problem with Zim is (though it should have been obvious by chapter one) first get's an imaginary statue of Spock riding a decapitated lizard. Rock, Paper, Scissor, Lizard, Spock! - whoever can get that reference get's a cookie. :)**


	5. Drowsy Confrontations

**I'm back and ready for action! Hopefully this chapter will fulfill any cravings you may have. Enjoy! **

Once GIR ran out of sight, Dib trudged back to the couch and collapsed on it with a sigh. He nonchalantly glanced towards the unconscious bug now lying comfortably on his back. Seeing as how there was nothing else to look at in the room that would interest the teen, Dib closely inspected his enemy, taking in the shape of his head and the oddly bent antennae twitching now and then.

Dib found those fascinating. True, they look and function just like any antennae found on a bug, but these were _life-sized_. No bug could produce antennae the size of these, unless—of course—they were infused with radioactive sludge.

With a newfound curiosity, Dib poked one and saw it begin to twitch. Head cocked to the side, he poked it again. It twitched as predicted. Well, there's one thing that's still functioning on him. Still bored out of his mind, Dib continuously poked at each one until it trembled constantly, making it seem as though Zim were trying to fly away with his antennae.

Dib grew amused by this reaction and reached his hand to capture one of the fluttering stalks before he froze in mid reach, a sudden realization invading his mind.

_Dib! Look at him! He's vulnerable! Don't tell me you were going to stupidly play with his buggy antennae while he regains consciousness! This is your chance! _

Dib grinned and hopped off the couch to get his camera when he hesitated after a few steps. What if Zim were to awake when he came back with his camera? Or worse… when he was **taking** the picture? There would only be the remains of a slaughter to take a picture of by that point. Dib grimaced.

_If there was any other time that you'd have the chance to do this it would be now. You want to see Zim captured, right? _

"Right!" Dib dumbly replied back.

_You want to see the world safe from an alien invasion, right?_

"Right!"

_And you want to see Zim dissected for the sake of science, right? _

"Yes! I do! I do goddammit!" Dib's grin spread, not caring who saw the ludicrously coming from him.

_Then what the hell are you waiting for? TAKE A PICTURE! _

With a burst of confidence, Dib sprinted to his baggage and fumbled around inside for his camera. A single "Aha!" later and Dib rushed back towards Zim with his camera at the ready.

"Best think twice before falling unconscious next to your enemy, Zim," Dib said, smile curling.

And with that, Dib pressed the button and a resounding _SNAP_ was heard along with a blinding flash of light.

A spark shot out of Zim's PAK that made Dib jump. He peered over his camera slowly; his anticipation rising to the capacity as if those pink eyes were already burning through his soul. He was shocked to see electrical sparks jumping out of it like fireworks on a holiday. The boy immediately panicked and dropped the camera with sweaty hands. He dropped down to pick it back up when a striking light pierced his eyes and he fell back, shielding his eyes.

_R…ksshh—re… react—ksshh… RE-ACTIVATING. _

Dib quickly kicked the camera under the couch upon hearing those words statically spoken. Looking up he saw Zim's body convulse for a few seconds and hang in midair before flopping down onto the couch like a lifeless rag doll. The room was still.

Dib, breathing heavily, scrambled to his feet and examined the alien closely. Zim's face was blank and Dib went to poke his face to see if he was even conscious. When nothing happened he sighed in relief. It was then that a deep magenta orb snapped open and scared the living crap out of Dib.

"GAAAH!" Dib screamed, stumbling back.

Zim bolted into a sitting position and snapped his head at Dib. Upon seeing Dib, Zim screamed.

Then there was that awkward moment where they both screamed at the sight of each other.

A moment of silence before the room erupted in shouts.

"Dib-stink! Look at what you have done to me!"

"Me! I did this to YOU? You've got to be kidding me! I'm not the one with a superiority complex here!"

"You're also not the one with a working brain either!"

"Oh boohoo! I'm Zim and I'm so incompetent that I've got to have an inferior human teach me a sport I don't need to learn!"

"OOH! BURN!"

"Shut up, GIR! You can't possibly know how I work, hum—"

"Why are you always blaming things on m—"

"Don't think I can't—"

"—ways going about thinking that you're—"

"—pid big head of yours always getting in my w—"

A shrill beep muzzled the shouts.

"Master, there appears to be a malfunction with the AI brain."

"Eh?" Zim faced upward. "A malfunction? Then fix it!"

"It must be done manually, sir. It's preventing me from fixing it."

Zim sighed loudly and pointed a clawed finger at Dib. "I'll deal with you later, Earth stink."

Dib crossed his arms moodily. "Well fine! Go and fix your stupid brain! That doesn't mean I'll be here when you get back!"

Zim began a steady march towards the kitchen. Without turning back to acknowledge his guest he called back, "Computer, make sure the Dib human doesn't do anything rash or moronic while I'm gone."

With that, he was flushed down to the deep center of his lab. Once out of sight, Dib sat up straighter and glared up at the ceiling.

"There is no damage to the AI brain, is there?"

"Guilty as charged," replied the monotonous tone of the computer.

Dib snorted. "Figures. Zim's too stupid enough to figure out that you wouldn't be working if there was any real damage to your brain."

"It has its advantages. It got you two to shut up so I'm not complaining."

Dib rubbed his chin absentmindedly and quizzically glanced up at the computer.

"That reminds me… you're a computer… aren't you, ya know, not supposed to have emotions and such?"

Dib would suspect that an overly emotional piece of machinery would explode at the sheer insult, but the ceiling merely hummed in thought.

"I dunno," it finally said, bored as ever.

Dib groaned and sank back into the couch, agitated at not having his question answered thoroughly.

The computer made a thoughtful noise before it spoke again.

"Well, I suppose since Zim and his robot are both—"

"COMPUTER!"

A defeated sigh came from above before Zim came parading back in the room with hands fisted on his hips.

"Computer, the AI brain was fully operational! Clearly you were mistaken!"

"Um… okay? Master, if I am functional enough to alert you of a problem with the AI brain then there is obviously nothing wrong with it."

"LIES! And what do you mean by "obviously"? Are you calling your master incapable of detecting such a problem?"

"Ye—no. I am aware that there was undoubtedly an error with my calculations when I alerted you."

"How dare you make a fool of—wait, you lied to Zim!"

"It was only to make you and the big headed human stop bickering like a married couple…"

"LIES!"

The computer sighed.

"Computer, I will most certainly not tolerate…heeyy! Dib-slime!"

"Wha-huh?" After tuning Zim out the entire time, the sudden volume of his name snapped Dib back into reality as he turned his head sluggishly towards the impatient alien tapping his foot repeatedly. Dib groaned.

"What do you want, Ziiim?" he whined out exasperatingly.

Zim paused. The tone that the Dib spewed out was laced with a thick layer of lethargy and crankiness. Zim had heard it before from a toddler being dragged behind his mother at the mall once. Disgusting human smeet that child was.

"What time do you humans usually sleep once the sun has fallen from view?"

Dib glanced up at Zim tiredly from his slouched position and mumbled out, "I don't know. Whenever, I guess." He yawned.

"Not a good enough response human. I need a specific time."

Dib growled in the back of his throat and sat up to comb his fingers through his greasy hair. "Well, we have to get up kind of early to first start your lesson so I'd say around nine or ten o'clock."

"Computer!" Zim shouted.

"Whaaaat?" His computer sounded completely aggravated by his master's shout.

"Give us the time for Earth!"

The computer sighed again. "It's… exactly nine thirty three p.m."

Dib scratched the back of his head. "Well, then. I guess we better get going to bed. We should wake up around eight in the morning to get a head start with snowboardi— hey!"

His sentence cut short by a vice grip on his arm tugging him off the couch.

Dib stumbled, not ready for a fast paced action led by Zim. He let himself be dragged by Zim into the kitchen. Once inside the small room, Zim stopped both of them in the middle of the area.

"Stay close to me and don't move," he ordered, flushing Dib's body against his side. Dib still felt rather light headed and wobbly on his legs but didn't complain. He was growing too tired to argue anyway. Eyes drooping, his head lolled down until it connected with Zim's shoulder, only to immediately pull back up and shake away his drowsiness.

Zim was taken aback from the sudden weight on his shoulder but decided it was nothing.

"Computer, take us to the master bedroom on level two."

There was a rumbling beneath Dib's feet. A sharp hiss followed after with billowing smoke trailing into the air as a six foot dome erupted from the ground and encased around the two. Dib understood why Zim told him to stay close as he was squeezed between the glass interior wall and Zim's side.

Dib saw a bright flashing white light that made his head begin to ache. He shut his eyes tightly for a second due to the painful light and opened them again to see a whole different location than where they were before. However, it wasn't unfamiliar to him.

It was the secret hallway Dib had stumbled upon a few weeks ago the day they had made the treaty. The hallway was dimmed with shadows plastered on the walls. The dome disappeared and Dib put a hand onto Zim's shoulder to steady himself without the support of the wall to hold him up anymore.

A pointed look from Zim and Dib yanked his hand away to rub it on his shirt, looking anywhere but Zim.

Zim made a noise in his throat before taking Dib's arm rather roughly and dragging him towards the first door on the right of the hallway. Dib sleepily followed.

Zim opened the door and Dib saw the familiar one bed and one nightstand furniture still standing in their exact spots. Zim led Dib into the room as if he knew Dib would collapse if he let go of the boy.

"You will be staying in here for this vacation, Dib-filth. Be grateful that your greatest enemy is generous enough to give you such a room!"

Dib winced at the yell but merely walked toward the bed with sleepy eyes. However, before he could even think about lying down, he was jerked back and spun around to face the extraterrestrial. He dragged a hand down his face with a groan.

"What is it now, _Zim_?"

"Dib-smell, why is Zim's head all bandage-y?" Zim ran his hand over the bandages curiously.

"Because, Zim, it was all broken and-and… stupid looking. So I, the amazing Dib, fixed your silly cranium thing. You got that?" Dib swayed.

Zim raised an invisible brow. "Has the Dib been… consuming any alcohol lately?"

Dib stamped his foot and whined out, "No, dammit! I'm tiiired! Now will you _please _let me sleep, Zim? I promise I won't… dissect you or anything, just please leeeeave."

"Very well, Dib-brat. The Zim will be leaving to go recharge himself for the night. Now sleep! We have much to do tomorrow!"

Zim spun on his heel to leave when he heard a loud thump on the floor behind him. Glancing back, Zim gave a frustrated noise when upon seeing the human crumpled on the floor in a heap a few inches from the bed.

"Moronic fool couldn't even make it to his rest place," he muttered out, shaking his head in shame.

Walking over to Dib and nudging him with his boot, Zim called out, "Human! If you do not get up this instant then your future slave master will leave you on this filthy floor to gather up dust gerbils!"

There was a pathetic whine from the latter beneath. Zim growled and stooped down to snatch the human off of his feet into a standing position.

Zim grunted. "Earthling, why are you getting so… nngh… heavy?"

Dib mumbled out a slurred response before cracking open his eyes to take in his surroundings. Upon seeing Zim's figure, he gave a short bark of laughter followed by a snort.

"Zim… what're… what're YOU doing here?"

"Get on the bed, Dib-stink."

"Kaay," Dib said before collapsing onto the bed face first and arms spread out.

The bed was extremely comfortable and easy to sink into. The gossamer feel had Dib giving a very comfy sigh that melted into his mouth. He quickly kicked off his boots and adjusted himself for the night.

"If this is how you act when you are tired, Dib-pig, then I can only imagine how you would act when drunk out of your mind."

Zim's annoyed tone from behind made Dib giggle stupidly at the thought. Then he felt sharp fingers dig into his face and the feel of metal slipping off the bridge of his nose. Dib wrinkled his face and turned his head away. A soft clink was heard next to him. Then the room was surrounded by darkness.

"Sleep, human."

The quite voice hung in the air before the sound of a door shut and Dib's mind drifted into a world of dreams.

**Hot damn, that took a long time to update. Folks, I deeply apologize for the long wait but I have been quite busy lately. Now that it's Summer I don't have to quite worry as much. I will try and update another chapter soon. I've been editing the crap out of this becuase I keep wanted to fix and refix any errors that displeases me. I'm also trying to stay in character, which has proven to be difficult on Dib's behalf. I thank you all for your wonderful reviews and hopefully I'll try and get somewhere with this story during the next few chapters. :) **

**Hint for next chapter: Zim and snow don't mix too well. ;) **


	6. When you give a Zim a snowboard

**Yay! Another chapter! Okay so this is an official record for me so far. I'm going to try and keep 'em coming during this Summer, though I've still got work to do as well. Enjoy! :) **

Sniff.

Sniff.

"Mmnnwha…?"

The sweet smell of eggs, bacon, and syrup snaked its way into Dib's nostrils as he took in another deep breath through his nose. The delicious aroma lingered and not a second later did a low rumbling noise reach his ears. Clutching his stomach, Dib moaned and rolled over onto his stomach to stop the shaking.

He fluttered his eyelids open to take in the blurry outline of his pillow staring back at him mockingly. Sleep sounded wonderful, but the scent of breakfast overpowered that thought. He would rather eat his stomach out than sleep on an empty belly shaking with hunger the entire time. Not to mention the absence of food he had gotten last night after they arrived didn't do him justice. Another low rumble and Dib decided to get up.

He lay on his stomach for a few seconds before letting out a low discouraged noise. He could NOT get out of bed. The bed was just too damn comfortable to even try moving.

But the intoxicating smell activated his stomach to continue to whine from lack of food. So he decided to suck it up and get on down towards the kitchen. It took a bit of work but Dib managed to lift himself up on his hands and knees… only to instantly fall back down onto his side. He groaned again.

"Stupid limbs," Dib muttered angrily.

He tried again, but before he could even sit up there was an angry shout from below.

"DIB-STINK! IT IS TIME FOR FOODENING!"

The shout caused Dib to jump in surprise before rolling off the bed and onto the floor painfully. He gave another frustrated noise as he picked himself back up on shaking legs that began snapping from being locked up for so long.

"Alright already," he croaked out, sleep still thick on his tongue.

"DON'T MAKE ME COME UP THERE!"

Dib cleared his throat. "Alright, I'm coming! Jeez."

Noticing that the room was still jumbled together in a bunch of random blurred colors, Dib fumbled his hand around for his glasses before shoving them back onto his face. He rubbed under his eyes before letting loose a yawn.

Tiredly, Dib shuffled his feet towards the door and into the hallway. As he walked towards the secret entrance that would lead him back into the living room, Dib stretched his body in different positions so that they would pop back into place. He slinked through the entrance and instantly heard an off key hum come from inside.

Dib sighed. GIR must be up. Dib saw the robot prancing around while setting down plates piled on and on with waffles, eggs, and bacon. Dib swallowed the built up saliva in his mouth. He was starving!

And then Dib spotted him. The alien was sitting at the table with his feet propped up and face obscured by the neatly opened newspaper he was currently reading. Dib raised a brow at this. Since when is Zim ever interested in Earth news? He could hear the alien humming along with GIR as his foot bobbed side to side to the tune.

His stomach gave another jolt as if to remind him what he was there for. Dib began walking towards the kitchen and took a seat across from Zim without saying a word. He pulled back the chair and caused it to screech against the tiled floor. The noise had Zim's antennas perking up over the newspaper.

Dib took a plate towards him and began shoving food into his mouth as Zim peered over the newspaper before folding it back up nicely. He took a long look at Dib as the boy continued to scarf down his food. He gave a look of disgust at the sight. An article once told Zim that the environment of teenagers were that of being uncouth and sloppy, an article up until now that Zim fully agreed with. Dib hardly noticed the fist that slammed on the table in front of him.

"Control yourself, Dib-worm! Dear Irk, you're getting food everywhere!"

Dib looked up at Zim with a mouthful of food and opened up to show off his display of chewed up breakfast with a grin on his face.

Zim's eyes widened before shielding his sight. "EW! EW! MY EYES ARE BURNING! STOP IT! ZIM COMMANDS IT!"

Dib snapped his mouth shut and swallowed.

"You're not the boss of me, Zim." Dib pointed his fork at him.

Zim crossed his arms tightly over his thin chest. "This is my base! Therefore you will abide by _my_ rules!"

Stabbing his fork bitterly into his waffle, Dib said, "You know, it's considered rude for a student to be disrespectful to his teacher."

Zim sneered at the smug look sent his way.

"Do not forget that you are here against your will, human."

"Which is also considered rude for most people," Dib pointed out.

"Rragh! As if I _care _about what your people think! And neither should you!"

Dib paused in mid-bite and put down his fork slowly while narrowing his eyes on Zim questioningly.

"What's **that **supposed to mean?"

Zim stayed silent, glaring at his enemy. The two stared heatedly at each other for a minute before a loud _CLANK _shook the table as a plate stacked with waffles separated them. They both snapped their attention to GIR smiling brightly at both of them.

"Want any more waffles?"

Zim scooted back in his chair before standing up. "No, GIR, I believe Zim is done here. I also believe that the Dib should tidy himself up before we begin the lesson. He looks horrible."

"At least I'm not an ugly space monster," Dib muttered as Zim began to walk away.

Catching that comment, Zim paused in mid-step and turned around with a large sardonic grin masking his face. He leaned against the doorway of the kitchen.

"To be honest, stink meat, your hair looks as if a female Vortian just mated with it on Planet Blorch." With that, Zim cackled and walked off while giggling out, "Heh, rat people." This left Dib staring dumbfounded after him.

After a moment or two, Dib brought his hand up to run through his hair. The entanglement of his fingers in his hair was a sign that the alien wasn't lying. Dib found a mirror in the living room and looked at the mess that was his hair.

_I hate it when he's right, _Dib irritably thought as he grasped the two pieces of his long lock that had split and jutted out in different directions.

He tried to fix his hair back into place but every time he would try running his hands through that psyche lock to put them back together it would spring back to its original position. Dib realized that what he was doing only resulted in making him look even shabbier than before. He groggily sighed.

Suddenly, Dib felt a heavy weight slam into his head and he stumbled forward, nearly knocking into the mirror. The figure clung onto his head as he stared ahead through the mirror to see GIR smiling at Dib in his little green dog suit while waving in the mirror.

"Awwww, you look so cute!"

It was a subtle movement in the mirror but Dib saw it. A flicker of vision through his specs had Dib staring at a pair of glowing red eyes for a second before they disappeared.

Dib spun around—still trying to unlatch GIR— to see nobody else in the room. He stood there for a second, ignoring GIR's incessant chat, and searched for any other movement. There was nothing.

"Zim?" Dib took a step forward. "Zim, is that you?"

"Heeyyy, Mr. Milkman! Why is there no chicken in your head? Whyyy isn't there any chickeeeenn!" GIR shook Dib's head back and forth before the teen grabbed GIR and tossed him off his head.

"Leave me alone, will ya?"

"…OKAY!" GIR trotted off.

Annoyed, Dib looked around once more before heading back into his room to go get ready.

* * *

><p>When Dib came back out into the living room an hour later with all of his snow gear comfortably secure on him and hair back to the way it was, he saw that Zim was, too, in his suit. Zim was currently shouting at GIR to grab his boots for him. The robot came back a few minutes later with a boot swinging side to side on his one metal antenna adorning his head and his hands around the other one.<p>

"Masta! I gots you your boooots! Now your feet will be aaaalll warm!" GIR trotted up, holding his boots for Zim who was sitting on the couch with a look of irritation.

"It's about time, GIR!" He snatched the boots from GIR. Then he pointed to the other side of the room. "Now leave my sight, you ungrateful robot!"

GIR's antenna wilted and a saddened expression overtook him as he bent his head low and slowly left Zim with a sniff. For a split second, Dib saw Zim's eyes soften for a moment before the Irken had seen the human from the corner of his eye and he went right back to hardening his gaze at the retreating robot. Then GIR raced off into the toilet with a loud wail, a trail of tears following. Zim rolled his synthetic eyes that were already implanted.

Dib didn't know how to react other than to inspect Zim for any other emotions he doubted he had. Zim felt Dib's eyes on him and he looked up to deliver a glare.

"What?" He sneered, beginning to pull on a boot.

Dib shrugged and sat on the couch to put on his own boots.

"Someone's peeved enough to take it out on their robot," he said.

"Oh, please, Dib. As if that horrible robot has any _feelings_. He's a cold metal machine who is supposed to obey his master, which GIR obviously fails to do most of the time."

"He seems to express more emotions than you do."

"As if that's a good thing," Zim snarled out. "As Irken weaponry he shouldn't even be expressing such things other than what we Irkens feel. We aren't supposed to be capable to such things as _love _and _affection_. Feeling them is inconceivable on my planet, Dib-pig."

Dib's eyebrow rose at the gradual drop of Zim's voice and the darkening of his eyes. It left Dib feeling uneasy.

"Uh-huuuh," he drawled out, putting the other boot on.

Zim shook his head at the dumb response and began tying his laces together.

Dib hesitated. "Well, in my opinion, I'd say that emotions make you stronger. Less weak, ya know? Otherwise you'd be running off on your hatred without relying on anyone, which has always been your downfall, Zim."

Zim stopped and glowered. "Are you calling Zim _weak_, human?"

"I've BEEN calling you weak for a long time, dumbass."

"ZIM IS NO DONKEY!"

Dib face palmed and ignored the seething Irken. Standing up, he grabbed his snowboard and tucked it under an arm. He heard cursing as he watched Zim try to tie his laces.

"Need help?" Dib asked with a smirk.

"No, Zim does not want your ffffilthy help! GIR!" There was a loud whiny cry from somewhere in the base but the robot didn't appear. Zim growled.

He pointed at his boot. "Tie my thingies, human slave!"

_Yet another thing I can do better than Zim_.

"And wipe that stupid grin off your face!"

Once outside, Dib dragged his snowboard towards a flat surface so he could buckle in and start boarding down towards the active ski lift. He plopped down into the silken snow with his snowboard and began to buckle in his feet. His hair whipped in the wind as the buckles clipped in around his feet. Dib was so used to snowboarding that he hadn't used a helmet in a long time.

"Zim, c'mon! We're going to be late if we don't get down there before traffic rush!"

"Do not tell Zim what to do!" The muffled shout had Dib rolling his eyes.

After securing his feet in, he paused to turn around in search for his enemy when he heard snow crunching beside him. He turned to his left to see Zim had already settled down and was figuring out how to buckle in his snowboard with a sour look on his face. Dib looked down at Zim's board.

It was smooth and slick; the brilliant lime green color was prominent against the white snow. And there was a bright red "Z" painted in the middle of the board. The paranormal investigator figured Zim would add on an egotistical sign representing his 'amazingness'.

Dib waited silently for the alien to clip into his snowboard all by himself. Surely the invader knew how to do even THAT. He was proven wrong when, five minutes later, Zim still couldn't figure out which part went in which. He could tell Zim was losing his mind and even the boy was growing impatient with Zim's stupidity.

Dib's hand grabbed out to stop Zim's hands from fumbling about with the straps so he could properly show the bug how it was done. Zim huffed with annoyance when Dib slipped the strap into the buckle and clicked it in until it snugged tight on his boot. The boy did the same to the lower strap and buckle before gesturing for Zim to do the other foot with a try.

Without a word or a glance towards Dib, Zim did as he was shown and fit the straps on nice and tight. Zim scoffed.

"Primitive pieces of junk," he muttered, crossing his arms angrily.

"Said the alien using one," Dib finished with a smile.

"Shut up!"

Seeing as how they were ready to go, Dib made enough room for himself so he could flip over onto his knees. He managed to balance himself on the snowboard as he kept onto his toes and began sliding down inch by inch, balancing with his arms. He glanced over at Zim to see him still sitting there and scrutinizing Dib with uncertainty.

"You coming or what?" Dib asked.

Zim looked down at his snowboard and then back up at Dib.

"Eh, Zim will be right there, Dib-filth. Just let me gather my bearings so that I may overcome this _board _with my superior mind!"

Dib sighed impatiently and forced himself to watch Zim closely in case he did something stupid. It was often enough that Zim's idiocy had gotten them into trouble. Like the time when he tried using a hamster to take over the world...and orphans... and a couple of zombie weenier dogs that one time. In fact, the more Dib thought about it, it seemed as though it was only HIM who got in trouble every time he tried to stop Zim. Zim usually gets away scott free! Anger bubbled inside Dib as year after year flashed by with him ending up in the crazy house or recieving major injuries while Zim walks away back to his base each time. It was only now that Dib recognized what he was even doing for this space jerk right about now. He shot a glare at Zim.

_First he forces me into a treaty, holds me here against my will, mocks me, orders me around, and now he's just—hold up. What in the hell? _

Dib took a double take and saw that Zim's rear end was beginning to smoke. His eyes widened. Dib began to wonder if Zim was too stupid to figure out what was happening to him. But Zim must not have known because the alien was still trying to figure out how to balance much like Dib had.

"Um, Zim—" Dib pointed out but was interrupted by Zim.

"Silence, human beast! Can't you see that Zim is trying to—"

"Your ass is practically on fire," Dib half laughed out, pointing at it.

An awkward silence ensued before Zim let out a screech and jumped into the air to relieve his poor butt from the pain. However, he was caught off guard when he forgot that his feet were bound in place and he was suddenly hurled face first into the snow. Dib would've laughed had it not been for the fact that the effect of gravity caused Zim to run smack into the boy and caused both of them to tumble painfully down the steep mountain.

"OW! OOH! AH! EEE! OW! DAMMIT! OUCH! AHHH!"

Their cursing, screaming, and shouting entwined with each roll against the mountain as snow stuck to their clothes and formed a giant snowball around them. Both of them didn't have time to think before they had crashed into a tree near the bottom of the mountain and sent them both hurling at opposite directions as if they were pins struck by a bowling ball.

Their chaotic experience ended with large amounts of snow flying through the air and onto them both. There was moaning underneath the piles before they simultaneously popped up with a gasp of air. Dib breathed heavily and took a minute to take in his surroundings.

"AUGH! THE SNOW! IT BUUUURNS!"

Dib held his pounding headache and shot a nasty glare at the screaming alien.

"Oh, will you just shut up!"

Dib grunted as he struggled to release himself from the thickness of the snow squeezing against his lower body. After a few minutes of wiggling and pulling, his determination pulled off as he had managed to free himself, all the while ignoring Zim's angry protests from the other end.

He unclipped himself before setting off to free the little bug… or _not _so little. Once out, Zim straightened himself out while wiping furiously at the snow stuck on his clothes. Dib in the meantime observed his enemy's height in astonishment.

Zim, somehow, had nearly reached Dib's stature. Dib blinked. How had he not noticed this before? True, his height as a new high school student was not impressive, but he was still considered average height for his age. He wasn't the same four foot ten kid anymore. He had progressively reached to five foot five and he was still growing. Zim… why, he must be at least five foot two by now!

"How in the hell…" Dib mouthed, bemused by this discovery.

"Hey! Dib-beast, pay attention to Zim!"

Dib pushed away the fingers snapping in his face.

"I hear you, Zim. What do you want?" he snapped.

"Let us finish this stupid lesson! Zim hurts all over…"

Dib smirked. "I take it you had no idea that snow was water."

Zim shot him a glare of pure hatred. Dib didn't flinch. He was used to this treatment on a daily basis at home or at school.

"Now what, Dib-thing?" Zim grumbled.

Dib looked over Zim to see the amount of hill they had covered with the incident. He could still see the glowing green house but it was a lot farther away than he thought it would be. The area they were in was flatter than up there, and it wasn't flat enough to delay a snowboard from gaining motion to sled down the hill. It was the perfect place to start.

"Hmm. How about we start learning down here. It's a lot safer than up there and it'll take us longer to get down to the lift if we end up walking, which, I'm sure, is what we both don't want."

Zim nodded. He really didn't want to walk down there with his feet getting soaked up by the water. He began to shift from one foot to the other.

Now that they were on the same page, Dib motioned for Zim to follow him down to a flat area where they could clip back in.

The alien followed Dib with his snowboard under his arm and hesitantly sat down next to him while trying not to sit on too much snow; he instantly hated the snow already trying to seep into his already wet pants. Dib clipped in and faced Zim once again with the front of his snowboard digging into the snow to keep his balance.

"Okay, go ahead and clip in, Zim."

Zim did as he was told without saying a word. After he was done clipping both in, he looked up at Dib with narrowed eyes. His eye twitched.

Dib looked behind him. "It's not too steep or flat. I should tell you that when you're a snowboarder, flat areas aren't the best for you because it's tiring and—"

"Dib-smell, hurry up! I can already feel the wetness soaking into my pants!"

"Why the hell do I even bother?" Dib mumbled to himself. He was, nevertheless, under an oath he couldn't break. "Alright, go ahead and try standing up while maintaining your balance."

Zim placed his palms on the snow and pushed himself up. He immediately fell down on his butt again. He growled and tried again. The Irken gave up after falling down three more times.

"Augh! This stupid contraption does not allow Zim to regain his balance! This thing should be destroyed!"

Dib, however, found all of this too amusing and snickered at Zim's discomfort. Zim growled at Dib for daring to laugh at him.

In a slightly better mood, Dib lowered his hand towards him.

"Here, just, let me help you stand at least."

Zim eyed him suspiciously. At this reaction, Dib grew aggravated. "Or I could always leave you here to figure out how to get down to the ski lifts, of course."

That seemed to sway Zim as he grabbed onto Dib's hand and was hoisted up onto the snowboard. Zim held onto Dib's arms and gave a tiny squeak when he found himself starting to slide down. Dib found it was safe to allow Zim to start sliding down as he eased up on his toes and slid down with him.

"Now, dig your heels slightly into the snow, bend your knees, and even your weight so you won't fall over," Dib instructed, letting go of Zim but still keeping a short distance between them.

Zim tried to do as he was told. He really did try. But he felt himself falling backwards as he leaned too much on his heels. He frantically waved his arms around to keep his balance, but he was already starting to fall. Luckily, Dib was there to grab his arm in time and he brought him back to his original standing position.

Zim clung onto Dib desperately so as to not fall onto that deadly liquid like snow that stung him so badly. A disgruntled Dib tried to loosen the alien's grip on him as they began to slide down the mountain. Still the alien did not lax his hold and wobbled back and forth on his snowboard dangerously from the sudden slip down the slope. Dib started to panic at how fast they were sliding down and tried to instead assuage the alien instead of shaking him off physically.

"Zim, quit struggling! Try and relax! Look at me, Zim! Look at—Zim! Will you just…? Zim, look at me! Just look! Zim, look at me."

Zim averted his gaze from down below him to set his eyes on Dib's face. The organ equivalent to his heart was flittering against his chest from nearly falling again. His heels unconsciously dug into the snow harder, slowing them both down. At the sudden deceleration, his grip on the human loosened and he straightened out his arms to give him space away from Dib, grimacing from the proximity of their faces, but he still kept his stare on Dib's focused eyes.

They were slowly inching down the mountain. Dib took Zim's hands out of the hold on his shirt and held his arms instead. He never dared stray his gaze from Zim as they continued to inch.

"Zim, you gotta relax when snowboarding. It's not a sport you need to freak and stress out on. Just concentrate on me, okay? It's all about balance. Don't look away from me or you may lose your balance."

It seemed to be working, too, because Zim seemed to have been balanced. Dib noticed this sense of equilibrium in the alien and the corner of his mouth twitched up.

"Alright, I'm gunna let go now, okay? Just do what you're doing and keep your eyes on me. Concentrate now. Ready?"

Dib let go when he didn't get an answer and Zim instantly kept his arms up so as to keep that balance, keeping his focused eyes on Dib.

"Holy crap... Zim! You're doing it! My god, you're doing it!"

And so Zim was. Though slow, it was his first step in snowboarding and, for some reason, Dib was feeling pride in his success so far through his teaching methods.

"Wow, Zim, I can't actually believe you've gotten this far," Dib said.

"That's because I am amazing! I AM Z—!"

Zim seemed to have forgotten about what he was doing before falling back down on his rear end.

"Ow…" Zim rubbed his tailbone. Dib grinned.

"Okay, so you need a little more help. No problem. All you need to do is listen to me for once and by the end of the day you should have the basics down."

Zim scoffed. "Zim shouldn't be listening to you in the first place."

"Hey, you're the one who made this deal, Zim. Not me."

"Well, you're the one who accepted so… ha!"

"That… didn't even make any sense."

Zim stuck out his segmented tongue childishly.

Dib sighed. "Whatever."

"Now, hurry up and teach me, Dib-slave!"

Dib rolled his eyes for what seemed to be the billionth time that day and began going over the heels again since it was the easiest to learn. The paranormal investigator knew this was going to be a LONG day.

**That was a long chapter for me to edit. Well... at least it's gettin' there. Next chapter should be coming soon! **

**And now, a very funny IZ quote that I found amusing to me from an unfinished episode. **

**Zim: Hey! At least he's better than YOUR stupid sidekick! *points to something***

**Dib: ...That's a soda can. **

**Zim: Who's pathetic now! **

**That is all. You may laugh now because it is pretty damn funny when you think about it. X) **


	7. Bets and Aliens

**My god. It's been a while. Seeing as how I finally have some extra time on my hands, I have finally created another chapter. Woo! I want to thank you all for the lovely reviews and I'm flattered that everyone likes it so far. :) Enjoy! **

"How dare that pathetic fool run into Zim! Does he honestly not know I could've died from such an impact?"

Dib leaned back and exhaled a puff of cold air as it dispersed in seconds. Throughout the day, Dib had tried to teach Zim the basic of heels. It was harder for Dib than he thought it would be because Zim was… just not getting it. There was a time when Zim was doing good for a little while down the mountain before losing balance and slamming back into the ground.

The worst part of the day was showing Zim how to get on a ski lift. It was comical how Zim could make fun of such primitive looking objects and then finding himself not being able to figure out how to sit on one.

Dib had laughed for five straight minutes when one of the workers at the ski lift had to stop the lift when Zim was knocked to the ground by the lift and ended up landing flat on his face under it.

"Um, he's sort of a beginner." Dib would say whenever he got a couple of weird stares sent his way. But Dib had to have hand it to Zim, the little alien was starting to get the hang of it near the end of the day. He was starting to decrease in awkward falls by this time. Even if he didn't figure out how to get on a ski lift until his eleventh try.

Dib heard Zim complain loudly once again about the skier that had just knocked him over. He rolled his eyes and called back to Zim.

"First of all, Zim, it was a kid no older than five. Second, you weren't even snowboarding when he ran into you at the speed of three miles per hour."

He could feel the glare that bore into the back of his skull. "No matter! We must continue on with the lesson! And that dirt smeet had the mass of a dying sun if you must know!"

"Uh-huh," Dib nearly laughed out, shaking his head in amusement at the ridiculous lie Zim had given as an excuse. From there he led the Irken towards the nearest lift.

Once on the lift and seated comfortably—Zim feeling pride with the successful jump onto the lift—Dib began ignoring Zim blabber on about his amazing skills at the sport. Instead the teen idly scanned the area below for any giant footprints or for people making very fruitless attempts to jump giant ramps. Higher and higher they were lifted until they were level along with the other ski lifts in front of them. Silence carried along with them as they looked around.

Zim turned towards his enemy. "So… Dib…"

Dib faced Zim. "What?"

"Once Zim has mastered the heels, what will be the next step?"

Dib blinked. "Well, we'll work on the toe side tomorrow. All you need to know is going from heels onto your toes and being able to 'S' down the mountain. That's mainly it, really."

Zim squinted at him in confusion. "What is this… 'S' thing you speak about?"

"It's alternating from your heels to your toes. Like… that guy, down there. See him doing some sort of an 'S'?"

Zim looked to where Dib was pointing and saw a snowboarder going wickedly fast down the mountain and going from his heels to his toes to create the letter 'S' like Dib had told him.

"Hmm…I see. Will I be going as fast as that human once I've mastered the 'S'?" Zim pointed towards the human.

"Maybe. That depends if you're willing to take it up to the next step. But, Zim, I highly doubt that you'll be as good as that guy…"

"Of course Zim will be! I will be… what was it you said? Ah, yes, I will be _shredding _down that mountain faster than anyone has ever seen! I will be even faster than you, Dib-pig smelly!"

Dib smirked. "Oh, really? Is that a bet?"

Zim smirked back evilly. "I propose we test this theory by racing down a mountain on the last day we are here. Yes! A race to determine who is faster and better!"

Dib's smirk broadened. He knew he would win this one.

"You're on, Space Boy! In fact, let's make it more interesting only because I feel that much more confident in kicking your alien hide. If I win, you have to…eat a whole pound steak! Oh, and you also have to allow me to draw some of your blood."

Zim reeled back in surprise by such daring demands. He most certainly did not want to do any of those, but swallowing his vanity was undoubtedly out of the question. He accepted these biddings much to his disdain.

"Fine," he growled darkly. "And if I win, which I will, you must provoke Miss Bitters enough to send you to the Underground Classroom AND," Zim smiled devilishly as Dib looked about ready to protest. "You will become my slave for an entire week."

"A week?" Dib screeched, "Why don't you just make it a day?"

Zim shook his head mockingly. "Oh, poor horrible pig smelly. It seems as though this bet has gone _way _too far for him to handle. Do I hear surrender already?" Zim cupped a gloved hand to the side of his head as if there was an ear right there.

Dib clenched his fists. "No, but—"

"THEN there is no reason to complain! Now shake my glorious hand and accept the challenge!" Zim held out his hand.

Dib paled. No freaking WAY he would ever become a slave for an alien invader; especially if that alien happened to be the most obnoxious one to have ever existed. Dib contemplated for a minute. _Zim won't beat me. I've been doing this for years! He's only doing this for three days! There's no way he'll learn fast enough to beat me in a race! _

Dib smiled coolly at his confidence booster and gripped Zim's open hand tightly.

"Deal."

Time and time again Dib had desperately tried to get that bet out of his mind. He had thought that preoccupying his time by teaching Zim would distract him from the bet but it only made it worse seeing Zim begin to gain more speed down the mountain. The only time Dib felt confident in this bet was when Zim would waver dangerously gathering too much speed and end up falling in an uncomfortable position.

The only time Dib forgot about it completely was during lunch in the afternoon. Zim had strongly protested about eating down where all the other filthy humans were, but Dib reminded him that they weren't going to get another chance at eating. So, reluctantly, Zim had snowboarded down with Dib towards the lodge.

Lunch wasn't exactly great either. Zim complained the whole time about the food being just like the cafeteria food at school. Dib didn't think so at all. He would rather prefer a nice steak in substitute for unidentified grey matter.

After a few more hours of Dib trying to teach a pessimistic and cynical alien, Dib had decided to call it a day when the sun was beginning to set. Zim argued on the matter but Dib ignored him as he began to wonder how they were going to get back to the base.

When asked, Zim compromised by ordering GIR to come pick them up. There weren't many humans around in the little isolated area they were currently in. They were picked up by the little android—Dib having to clutch onto Zim's legs for dear life— and dropped off back at the base ten minutes later.

And now, haven been able to finally relax, Dib showered up—why does Zim even need a shower?—and dressed into his pajamas to get ready for bed. He looked at the clock in his room. 8:55. Well, it wasn't that late. Perhaps he could go downstairs to watch TV or something.

He hadn't seen Zim since they first got home. _He's probably working in his lab or snoozing on the couch or something. _

Walking down the hall, he went down the secret passage and entered the living room to see Zi—.

"Oh, god," Dib whined, shielding his eyes and turning away.

Zim continued to rummage through his suitcase for his uniform shirt…dress thing, completely disregarding Dib's presence.

"Dib-human, do not pretend as if I am not here. Zim doesn't care if you look at his amazingness."

"Yeah, well, I'm trying NOT to look. So would you _please _throw on a shirt or something? I don't need to see that much green."

Zim gave an apathetic hum in the back of his throat as he pulled out his uniform. He tugged it on until it was snug. Dib heard the shuffle of clothing cease.

"Can I turn around now?"

"Yes, dirt bag, you may now look."

Dib sighed out in relief and turned around. He walked over to sit down on the couch on the farther end of Zim, who was pressing buttons on a strange rectangular device. Dib leaned over to take a look on the screen, but Zim, who had finished pressing numerous buttons, stashed it away into his PAK.

"What was that?" Dib asked.

Zim crossed his arms and snootily turned away. "Nothing you want to be concerned with."

Dib paused and then turned towards the TV set with a shrug. "Whatever. It probably does something stupid anyway."

"It most certainly is not stupid! I…you're stupid!" Zim childishly blew a raspberry at Dib.

Dib went to respond back angrily but held his tongue. The last thing he wanted to do was get into another pointless argument. A subject change was in need.

"So… um… I take it you don't have a bellybutton then?"

Zim's eye widened as the other narrowed. "A what?"

Dib nearly face palmed. "Obviously not. _This _is a bellybutton, Zim."

Dib lifted his shirt part way to show off his. Zim made a face before it turned into a look of curiosity.

"How horribly fascinating! What is the function of this… hole in your belly? Can I touch it?" Zim reached a finger over to poke it without permission.

Dib shoved his shirt down in time with a look of disgust.

"No, you can't touch it! Stop that! They don't even DO anything."

Zim's irritation simmered when another question struck him.

"And what about those pink fleshy things on your chest I sometimes see on you humans. What do they do?"

Dib flushed and stammered out, "W-what? Oh… those? Um… they don't do anything either." Dib held down his shirt uneasily, feeling suddenly uncomfortable.

Zim made a discouraged sound and leaned back without saying a word. Dib shifted his eyes over at Zim enquiringly.

"So, what, do you just not have anything on your chest and stomach?"

"Zim is flawless unlike you," Zim proudly pointed out, folding his arms behind his head.

Dib snickered. "Right. Flawless. By mental standards, that's not really the case, Zim."

The dramatic switch from content to anger was immediate and Dib had to go back to what he said to have made Zim have such a reaction.

"Go to bed!" Zim barked out, pointing towards Dib's bedroom.

Dib held up a finger. "But—"

"BED!"

The teen gave Zim a perplexed look before slowly sliding off the couch and making his way to his room, eyeing back at the seething Zim for a second. Turning back around, Dib shook his head scathingly and mumbled out, "Someone's got serious mood swings."

Waiting until Dib was gone, Zim took out the same device he was fiddling with earlier and pressed a button to turn it on.

"Stupid pig worm," he grumbled, antenna lowering.

GIR, who had happened to watch the whole thing from the kitchen, skipped up to Zim and plopped down next to him holding a container that held two sticks of sugar with powdery sweetness on the inside.

"Aaaw… don't be sad, master! Dibby and Mr. Squirrel only need to talk about their feelings. Only cuz they love you, Masta! They love joo soooo much!" GIR hugged Zim's middle tightly with exaggeration.

Zim huffed but didn't push GIR off of him. He took one of the candy sticks out of its container and began to suck on the sweetness it contained.

GIR settled next to him and began eating his as well. The robot purred and curled up against Zim's side. His tongue stuck out as Zim's hand pat him on the head and played with the tip of his metal antenna.

"GIR, I want you to contact someone for me…"

Dib tossed over onto his side once more, the tossing depriving him of being able to fall asleep. This had been going on for a few hours now, which is a ridiculous amount of time to be rolling around trying to fall asleep, but the bet came flooding back to him once again.

Dib sighed harshly and sat up, rubbing his eyes and checking the time.

12:37.

Dib grumbled and swung his feet off the bed. He was parched. Shoulders hunched, he snatched his glasses and put them on his face before heading into the kitchen to get a glass of water.

Dib wasn't fully awake, but the voices that reached his ears caused him to freeze right before he entered the main room of the house. Blinking fully, he continued to listen.

"—but you promised! You… did you even try?"

That was Zim's voice. Dib clutched the wall and poked his head around to see Zim basked in a soft blue glow. The alien was looking up into the screen with concern masking his face. GIR was nowhere to be seen.

Dib craned his neck to look at the visitor on the screen. His eyes widened. What a weird looking alien!

Dib gaped and took in the horns sticking out of the sides of the alien's head. Its head was large and purple and its teeth… so _sharp. _Dib winced and realized that the alien was wearing an odd uniform marked with the number 777 on it.

Dib squinted at the screen. Wait…

Hadn't he seen this guy before from somewhere?

The alien on the screen sighed and began to rub the side of its head tiredly.

"Zim, look, I tried to get through to them. I mean, you'd think that they'd at least talk to the guy who _designed_ their ship! But, in all honesty, Zim, I really don't think they want to talk to you."

Zim's antennae flattened and he tensed. His next words were hissed.

"They'll have no _choice_ but to talk to me when they hear what I have to say to them."

There was a long pause before 777 spoke.

"Why don't _you _try and contact them?"

"You think I haven't tried?" Zim whispered, fisted hands shaking.

Dib's mind was racing. Why was Zim acting so… solemn? Why was he trying to call his leaders? And why the heck does this alien look so familiar? Dib was on his toes, not daring to make a sound in case he missed some of the conversation.

777 gave Zim a sympathetic gaze and said, "Well, you must have tried to ask other Irkens to contact—"

"They won't listen to me," Zim growled, gazing away. "The only one who will is Skoodge and he's practically a worthless Irken that my leaders won't listen to anyway. My last option was you… but now I see that this plan has failed me as well." Zim's gaze hardened.

777 sighed once again. "I tried, Zim. I suppose that's all I can do at this point in time. I'm sorry." The alien continued his sympathetic gaze.

Zim didn't look up. "Don't be. I should've known the outcome," he muttered, antennae twitching.

777 nodded and then he perked up a little, folding his arms across his chest as a lighter tone settled into his voice.

"You know, Zim, considering I'm still in prison and all, I was wondering if you'd—"

The transmission abruptly cut off as Zim silently stood there with his back to Dib. Dib decided it was best if he shrunk into the shadows and went on back to bed. He would have to question Zim tomorrow.

Stealthily, Dib began tiptoeing back to his room.

"Dib."

The teen froze in mid-step, heart racing in his chest at the soft, raspy voice behind him.

Slowly turning his head around, he saw his enemy leaning up against the hallway, right hand tucked into his body as the other flicked in and out in a steady motion. Dib's eyes trailed to the yoyo being caught in the Irken's hand before leaving it again to walk the ground and come right back up again.

Smiling guiltily, Dib turned his head back around and walked to his room briskly, pretending as if that didn't happen.

However, he was jerked back as something caught the back of his pajama shirt.

"Nyah!" Dib chirped out, being spun harshly around and pinned to the wall by a spider leg coming from Zim's PAK. Dib perspired as he saw Zim casually walking towards him while playing with the yoyo.

Nonchalantly, another spider leg shot out and pinned down the other side of Dib's shirt into the wall. Dib gasped and flinched, hating how easily he was spooked by the alien's technology.

Zim stopped a few feet from Dib and uninterestingly gazed at the yoyo, rolling and unrolling it as if contemplating what to do next. Dib squirmed against the restraints uselessly.

"You know, Dib, I have a saying about eavesdroppers," Zim began, lazily flicking out his wrist again. Dib could only watch helplessly.

"They are those who risk laying their ear on a mousetrap. Sometimes the trap goes off and sometimes it doesn't…." Zim snapped his yoyo back into his hand and clenched on it tightly until a crack was heard. Dib winced.

Zim finally gazed darkly at Dib and snarled out, "How _unfortunate_ that the trap had to go off on you."

Dib, whose mouth had refused to work in the first place, licked his lips and parted them. "Y-you… wouldn't go a-against your contract, now, w-would you?" He then smiled sheepishly in a pathetic plan to weasel his way out of the position he was in.

He was disappointed when a brilliant evil grin spread across Zim's face. Zim chuckled sinisterly.

"Nice try, stinky, but I believe the contract says that I can't plan to take over the Earth. I don't believe it said anything about me beating the meat out of you."

Fear fading, Dib crossed his arms angrily. "Oh, come on! That's not fair; you totally have a home field advantage!"

Zim threw the yoyo behind him. "And?"

"I…thought you fought fairly," Dib retorted.

The PAK legs immediately withdrew back into its storage room as Zim crouched low to the ground.

"So you're playing that card, eh? I see. No weapons then. Very well, human, on the count of three. One…"

Dib stood frozen, looking down at Zim blankly. "Wait…what?"

"Two…"

Eyes wide, Dib waved his hands shakily in front of his chest while stuttering out, "W-wait, I-I'm not—"

"Three!"

Dib hurled himself out of the way just in time as Zim pounced, claws exposed. Landing in a rather messy roll, Dib scrambled up to his feet and bolted, not looking back when he heard Zim's frustrated shouts.

"Get back here, you sniveling smeet! Get back here and face Zim!"

Dib panted, grasping walls so as to find the door to his room. The darkness wasn't helping at all and Dib had a clear understanding that Zim could see better in the dark than he could.

He only needed to find his room. At a time like this, it was a good thing he kept a secret weapon underneath his bed that he could use in case of an emergency. But only if he could find… aha!

Hand grasping the doorknob, he frantically rushed into the room and slammed the door behind him, locking it. He switched on the light, hissing for a moment at the brightness, and rushed over to the other side of his bed. There was a deafening bang against his door that made him jump out of his skin.

Dib grew annoyed at this point. "It's too freaking late to be dealing with this crap."

Another bang and Dib firmly grabbed a hold on the gun under the bed, bringing it up to eyelevel. A sudden noise of woods splitting in half reached Dib's ears and he looked up to see Zim standing over a demolished door with pieces of wood everywhere. The alien approached slowly.

Dib pointed the gun at Zim, narrowing his eyes.

"Don't come any closer, Zim! I'm armed!"

As soon as Zim caught sight of the water filled toy gun, he stopped, sneering.

"Hey! I said no weapons!"

"And I say that we stop this useless fighting and focus on getting our facts straight here," Dib said, lowering his gun.

Zim angrily kicked a piece of the door out of his way and marched up to the bed, placing his palms on the mattress and leaning forward.

Zim eyed Dib from across the bed and Dib consciously kept his gun at the ready in case of a sudden attack.

"How much do you know?"

Dib hesitated. "… All I know is that you want to contact your leaders… but you can't."

"Lies," Zim hissed out. "You're hiding more knowledge. Tell Zim!"

"Zim, I swear on my grave that I don't know any more than that. I honestly wish that I knew more but I have a feeling that you won't tell me anyway so there really is no point in continuing this conversation."

There was a beat of silence between them. A moment later Zim drew back. "I have my eye on you, Dib-stink."

With that, the Irken marched across the wooden pile that used to be the door and called back, "Now go to sleep!"

"Will do," Dib snapped back, waiting for Zim to be completely out of sight before moodily storming over to turn off the light and then climb back into bed.

"What an idiot," Dib muttered, trying hard to sleep with all that anger still swirling inside him.

**Let me know what you guys think. I know it's not perfect, but it's moving the plot along in a very slow and agonizing way. Don't worry, there will be much action to come! I've got it all planned out so hopefully it won't be long until the next chapter. :) Please stay tuned! **


	8. Frightening Discoveries

**Okey-dokey! Here ya go! Another chapter! Enjoy! :) **

Day two of enduring the chaotic and tedious process in teaching Zim how to snowboard was more tolerable than yesterday, Dib had to admit. Zim was more prepared this day by covering his body with paste to help prevent the water in the snow from burning him. The suit kept him well protected and as long as Zim didn't stay on the ground for too long then there wouldn't be any worries.

Dib was greatly surprised how well Zim was doing by snowboarding down on his toes. It only took the Irken a few falls down the hill before getting the hang of it. Zim grinned at his improvement and demanded that he try out a small hill by himself.

Dib felt a little uneasy about letting Zim try it out, but he agreed anyway. They agreed to meet at a snack shack by the end of their runs. Dib went on ahead as Zim took his time starting from his heels and going to his toes with a bit of difficulty.

Dib had waited a whole fifteen minutes down at the shack and he was growing more exasperatingly tired of waiting for him. Where in the hell was Zim? He decided that he would start looking for the alien if he didn't show up for another ten minutes.

Five minutes later and Dib sighed in relief when Zim came walking towards him while trying to shake the snow off of his feet. Dib felt like smacking his forehead. _He's walking ON snow, the idiot! _Nonetheless, at least they can get back to their lesson.

As the day progressed, Dib had successfully taught Zim how to speed up bit by bit on his toes and, eventually, his heels. Though the Irken did have some trouble alternating from one side to the other, Dib could sense that Zim will have it down by the end of the day, which gnawed uncomfortably at Dib's insides. What if… Zim became good enough to beat him in that race tomorrow?

Dib shoved the thought aside. No. No, that's just not going to be possible. He will win. He. WILL. Win.

At this newfound confidence, Dib continued to teach Zim, occasionally talking smack to Zim so as to boost up his moral. The alien wasn't pleased. Still, Zim showed his ignorance to the human's derogatory words through the rest of the day.

* * *

><p>"Sooooo booooored…"<p>

Dib lay on his bed, spread eagle and staring up at the ceiling flatly. A copy of Reader's Digest lay halfway open on his stomach. There was an occasional drip coming from the bathroom, but other than that it was completely still and silent. It was driving the teen insane.

Dib sat up. He needed to get out of this room. He needed to talk to someone, even if that someone had to be GIR. Hell, watching television would even be a good substitute and he hardly watched television now. All of Mysterious Mysteries had become reruns.

Dib adjusted his pajama shirt and made his way into the living room, keeping his ears open for Zim and GIR.

He was in luck when, peeking into the living room for Zim trying to change again, the living room was empty and the TV remote was placed on the couch. Dib grinned and sat on down to enjoy the wonders of television. It wasn't until after he started watching TV that GIR showed up with a giddy squeal. Dib groaned.

Dib thought GIR was annoying. REALLY annoying… but he supposed that the little robot wasn't all too bad. Especially since GIR had brought them both snacks to munch on while the android commented on every show that they saw. After five minutes, GIR brought in a movie and put it in for the both of them to watch. The lights dimmed and Dib chose a comfortable position to watch the movie in.

Zim came up from the trashcan in his kitchen and saw the two sitting on the couch watching some dumb movie. Zim crossed his arms and scoffed, thinking how stupid the both of them were being. Then he paused. There was a sweet smell in the air.

Antennae twitching, Zim drew closer to the scent and peeked over to what the Dib and GIR were eating. He couldn't make it out with the bowl being there but he was sure that even if he could, he wouldn't know what it was. Well, it looked as if he would have to find out himself… stealthily of course.

Attentively, Zim entered the living room and sat down next to GIR. Zim sat off towards the armrest of the couch, away from the other two who were close together and still eating the snacks in that giant bowl GIR had on his lap.

Zim had no idea what they were watching but whatever it was, it looked stupid and had no plot to it whatsoever. Beginning to relax against the couch now, Zim decided to make his move nonchalantly. He blindly stuck his hand into the bowl and grabbed a few of the weird looking human snacks. He analyzed them for a second. As predicted, he didn't know WHAT they were. Well, it didn't hurt to try.

Zim popped one into his mouth and chewed slowly, savoring the taste. He swallowed. _Well, they aren't that bad… and they aren't making me sick to my squeedily spooch like other human food products… _

The more and more Zim ate them, the tastier they became. Soon Zim was grabbing handfuls and chewing them wholeheartedly, smiling whenever an explosion happened or a human was dying in agony.

Dib didn't realize Zim's hunger for them until he went to reach for some and felt that the bowl wasn't even there. He looked over and saw Zim with the bowl in his lap and he was happily chewing away at the snacks that were more than half way gone. Peevishly, Dib reached over GIR and tried to take some of the snacks.

Zim saw Dib's 'sneaky' move and hugged the bowl to his chest, sticking out his tongue to Dib in the process.

"Man, Zim, hog much? Since when did you get a taste for caramel popcorn?"

"Since Zim felt like it! Quiet, Dib-thing! I'd like to watch humans suffering in peace!" He thumbed towards the movie and ate more popcorn.

Dib glanced towards the screen where a girl was being chased by a demon around the house, screaming in horror when five more appeared. He flickered his eyes over at Zim and down at the popcorn. He glared.

"Yeah, well some of us want to eat, too! Isn't that right, GIR?"

"Buttered socks and Suck Monkeys!" GIR giggled.

Dib ignored the insane robot.

"So fork it over, Space Boy! I have rights, too, you know!"

"Your rights don't count because you're a stupid hyuuuman! It's a free country! I can do what I want and when I want, worm baby!" To prove his point, Zim stuffed more popcorn into his mouth and chewed noisily.

"You're not even certified to say it's a free country! You're not even a citizen of this country or this whole planet for that matter!"

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah!"

Zim suddenly jumped off the couch with the bowl of caramel popcorn in his arms. He grinned evilly when Dib stood up to equally face his opponent.

Zim shook the bowl of popcorn tauntingly. "Why don't you come and get it then, you stupid stinking butt monkey!"

Dib grit his teeth at the childish insult. "It'll be my _pleasure_," Dib ground out.

The chase had begun.

GIR laughed loudly when the girl on screen was devoured by the demons. The robot was completely ignoring Dib and Zim shouting, running, kicking, screaming, and fighting everywhere in the house. The bowl of popcorn was now gone, spilled out all over the living room floor, which Zim had taken the liberty to have screamed out, "NOOOO! MY PRECIOUS SNACKS!"

GIR giggled and began eating the popcorn off the floor.

"How dare you spoil my snacks of delicious, eh, ness!"

"Ow! Hey! No biting!"

"Curse your long limbs!"

"Zim! You're ruining everyth—!"

"—me if you can, you smelly—!"

"—will beat the living sh—"

"—ep your disgusting—"

"GET OFF!"

GIR squealed again and waved his arms about just as the movie ended, the only sound now being the grunts and arguments tossing back and forth.

At last, both rivals collapsed to the floor, gasping for air from the exertion of their fight. It was a moment of silence until Dib sat up and with all his left over energy, kicked Zim in the stomach. Zim gasped and wheezed from the air being shot out of him. He curled in and glared up at Dib.

"Oh, you horrible and revolting worm! You shall pay for that!"

There was a grin of triumph from the teenager before a dark shadow fell over him and he looked up to see Zim standing over him ominously. Dib tried to stand but Zim had already grabbed him, opened the door, and thrown Dib face first outside in the snow.

Dib shot up from having to have skin contact with ice cold snow and tried to wipe it all off. Zim laughed cruelly and said, "I think it's time you've had a time out for the night, Dib-stink!"

The sound of the door slamming shut caused Dib to tense. He whipped around and bolted towards the door, trying in vain to open it.

Locked.

Outside.

_In the freezing cold! _

Dib began shouting obscenities and rammed his shoulder into the door repeatedly. No such luck. Grumbling, Dib shivered and rubbed his hands up and down his arms to create friction. He turned around and faced the darkness of the forest surrounding them. The sight was foreboding, yet intriguing to Dib. If he wasn't so cold, he'd explore out there a little to see what was there.

His feet were numb now. Dib gave a frustrated sigh and rubbed harder to stay warm. When he got back inside he was going to murder that alien.

Dib froze when he heard a rustle in the trees. The wind was picking up now, making the trees sway. Dib scanned the area. Owls were hooting louder. Snow was falling faster. Trees were swaying stronger. Red eyes were glowing brighter.

Wait.

Dib gaped at the sight of blood red eyes through the entangled forest. Shaking, Dib stepped back onto the porch, hand fumbling with the doorknob.

"Z-Zim? I-i-is that y-you? Y-you better n-not be playing a-any jokes, Zim! I-I…"

A loud growl met Dib's ears and he gasped, feeling the ground beneath his feet begin to shake. The glowing eyes were moving… closer.

_Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no! C'mon… c'mon, open! _

Dib's mouth opened and closed. His voice remained stationed in the back of his throat, no sound escaped. He needed to get out of there. Now.

The trees shook from each step the beast took. The snow was falling hard now, making it hard for Dib to see through his snow covered glasses.

"Dammit," Dib mumbled, trying to clean them. There was a booming roar from behind him. Dib gave a shout of surpise as his heart rammed against his chest. He pounded as hard as he could on the door.

"ZIM! ZIM OPEN UP! ZIM! YOU STUPID ALIEN! OPEN THE DOOR! PLEASE!"

Leaning all his weight, he pushed… only to fall straight inside.

Dib tumbled in, warmth immediately flooding his freezing body.

"Dear Irk, what is going on?" Zim shouted, roughly closing the door behind him.

Dib lay on the floor, panting and shivering in cold sweat. He took in large amounts of air through his lungs and a large shiver rippled through his body.

"GIR, bring the Dib a blanket," Zim said slowly, eyeballing the half spent 'fish' gasping for breath.

GIR came back with a descent sized blanket and draped it over Dib's shivering form. Dib grasped for the edges and pulled the blanket in towards his body, whimpering.

Zim felt confused. Why was the dirt child sniveling like a pathetic smeet? Irk, he was only out there for five minutes. What happened?

Approaching slowly, Zim poked Dib with his foot. "Hey," he said. "Earth monkey, get up."

Dib shook his head and closed his eyes tightly. Zim frowned. His impatience was beginning to show and he growled at the boy's stubborn attitude.

"Do you _want _me to put you back out there again?"

Dib jerked into a sitting position, a small puddle of water had formed beneath him from all the snow melting off of him. He glared hatefully into the eyes of his enemy.

"You h-have no idea w-what I just went through, you s-son of a…"

Dib sneezed, sniffed, and stood up with the now wet blanket at a heap on the ground. He thrust a finger at Zim, who looked surprise by Dib's sudden anger.

"How would you like it if I threw _you _out in the snow? You'd be fried up and then eaten by that—that thing outside!" Dib pointed at the door.

"What thing?"

"That monster! That…that…" Dib gasped. "Bigfoot. Or… abominable snowman! Or even a yeti! Damn! I didn't even have my camera on me!" Dib looked discouraged for a moment.

Zim laughed loudly. "Oh, please! Bigfeets? You don't actually still believe in those silly creatures, do you?"

Dib narrowed his eyes. "_You _exist! Why can't they?"

Zim laid a hand on his chest pompously. "That is because Zim is amazing and has marked his superiority on this planet whereas all those other creatures have failed to do. They would've done so already if they exist." Zim added a 'duh' tone to that last remark.

Dib rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I'm just telling you what I saw, alright?" Dib shivered. He was still wet and cold.

"And thanks to you, I'll probably be too sick to teach tomorrow."

Zim's eyes widened. "But…but Zim still needs to learn more! Zim refuses for you to be sick tomorrow!" He paused and then gave a sly grin. Pointing towards the ceiling for no apparent reason he yelled, "You shall be cured before then, you poorly functional meat sack!"

Zim turned and marched into the kitchen to swiftly flush himself down into his lab. Dib watched him go questioningly. What in the hell was that all about? Ugh. Whatever. He didn't wanna know. Nose wrinkling, he sneezed violently and sniffed, suddenly feeling like crap.

He needed a hot shower.

**And the plot thickens like pea soup in London fog! Thank you all for your awesome reviews! I will be posting another soon so keep in touch! **

**Tallest Purple: Hey! That's a Vort ship! I didn't think there were any of those left! Call them and tell them we're gunna blow them up! HA! **

**Tallest Red: Destroy them! Fire some kind of... lazer thingy at 'em! Right now! **

**I don't know about you guys but I freaking LOVE the Tallest. X) **


	9. Careful, it's hot

**At last! A break! Happy (late) Thanksgiving! I thank all of you out there for sharing stories and giving wonderful reviews. :) Sorry this chapter is so short but I promise that the next one will be longer. Enjoy! **

Dib hummed out a random tune as he dried out his hair with his towel. He could feel the numbness dispersing from his feet and hands. That hot shower had done the trick. Dib felt a lot better immediately afterwards. Hum turning into a whistle, Dib made his way into his room to change into another pair of warm pajamas.

Once contentedly settled into his garments, Dib put on his boots and went back into the living room to see where Zim had gone to. However, a chill went up and down his spine and he sneezed. Spinning around, he scanned the hall in search for deadly red eyes. When seeing none, he took a shaky breath and continued his way.

When Dib reached the living room, he started to feel shudders rippling down his body. Did it get colder in here? Shivering, Dib sat on the couch and drew up his feet, wrapping his arms around his legs. Another sneeze racked him and he frowned. Guess the shower didn't work out too well.

"Stupid shower, stupid snow, stupid Zim, stupid treaty, stupid Bigfeets, er, I mean, Bigfoot! God, I wouldn't even be here if Zim didn't stick his stupid noseless green face into my business! I'd be skiing with my family right now… or just Gaz since dad doesn't do any of that stuff…"

Dib grumbled and griped to himself a minute more before growing silent. Then a sudden thought occurred to him.

"I wonder if dad and Gaz even know I'm gone…"

Back at the Membrane household…

"Gaz, I'm off for another meeting so make sure your brother eats his vegetables. I'm starting to think his height is failing him."

Walking briskly out the door, Professor Membrane paused and turned back around.

"Oh, and make sure the experimental cat in the basement doesn't eat any Super Toast!" He shook his fist while narrowing his eyes and darkly stated, "Oh, the destruction that feline would cause…"

"Sure, whatever," Gaz grumbled out on the couch.

Back to Dib…

Dib jumped when he heard the alien returning from the grimy toilet in the kitchen. The alien marched up to the human, grinning in satisfaction. Dib fidgeted and saw that Zim was concealing something behind his back. Dib craned his neck to see behind Zim but the alien had already brandished what he was hiding.

A syringe.

Dib took a moment to truly look at what was there before yelping and scrambling off the couch to get away from the suddenly threatening alien.

"W-What are you doing with that thing? Y-you're not gunna…"

Zim pretended to look astonished. He glanced down at the syringe in his hand. "Hmm? Oh, what, stick this little thing your arm? Oh, it won't hurt a BIT, Dib-worm."

Dib grimaced. "Well, there is no way in hell you're injecting me with whatever is in there."

"Oh, quit your whining, Dib-breath! This'll prevent any sickness that your filthy organs may possess! Now come to Zim!" Zim pointed down in front of him.

Dib backpedaled. "You know, Zim, there are other ways to prevent a cold. There's pills and syrup that I can take instead of—"

Zim threw up his hand in frustration. "Did you even _bring _any of those things with you?" His put a fist to his hip.

Dib bit his lip in realization and muttered out, "Well, no, but I—"

"Then THIS is your only cure! Your fear of needles is ridiculous and Zim is growing—"

"I'm not afraid of needles!" Dib immediately defended. "I just don't trust you at all!"

There was a moment of silence between the two. Dib was looking uncomfortable and Zim looked livid.

"Dib… Come. To. Zim. _Now_." Zim growled out.

Dib crossed his arms and stamped his foot like an angry child. "No! I don't care if I get sick! I refuse to go anywhere near y—"

"_Get over here before I rip your legs off!_" Zim shrieked, his spider legs jumping out of his PAK in a deadly position.

Suddenly scared out of his mind and unable to think, Dib was standing in front of Zim before he even knew it. For the safetly of his legs he was willing to cross into deadly territory. The spider legs vanished and before Dib could try and run from the advantage, Zim grabbed his arm and pulled up his pajama sleeve.

Dib knew that struggling would be futile. He really didn't have anything to protect himself from the base's weapons. He sighed. "Fine, you jerk. But, I swear, if you poison me…"

"Now, why would I want to do that, Dib-smell?" Zim asked casually, uncapping the needle.

"Why? Do you even really need a reason wh-OUCH! Hey, watch it!" Dib tore his arm away as soon as it was over and rubbed over the spot where the needle pierced his skin. He hissed at the painful pressure.

Smirking, Zim capped the needle. "Why, then you would be dead and useless to me. Not that I don't already find you useless…"

"Hey, I've been the most useful thing to you on this trip, you jackass!" Dib retorted, sitting back down onto the couch. Huffing, he randomly said, "It sure did take a short time for you to find the cure for the common cold."

Zim laughed at the memory of him down in his basement. "Heh, yeaaahh, and it took an even shorter time finding the cure for cancer."

Dib whipped his head up immediately in shock. "I… what? Wait, you _actually _found a cure for cancer?"

Zim picked at his gloves. "Zim was bored one day."

Dib, still baffled at what he just heard, shouted out, "You were _bored _and you didn't even share with the world this discovery? I can't believe it!"

"Yes, well, Zim can. And I also wish to not discuss this anymore."

"B-but, Zim! You…I… you… ugh. You know what? I'll just talk to you about this later." Dib sat in silence, feeling his nose start to unclog… a little. He did feel better… kind of. I mean, not that Zim knows how to take care of humans… at all. Dib looked off to the side in distaste when thinking about Zim taking care of people. The idea was ludicrous.

Just then a familiar little robot whizzed into the room and began clinging onto Zim's uniform. GIR bawled loudly into the shirt and Zim impatiently demanded why his servant was acting in such a way.

"Mah… mah piggyyyy! He's-he's goooone, Master! He-he-he went to da moon with-without meeee!" Letting out another wail, GIR buried his head in Zim's shirt once more.

Zim sighed loudly before bringing a stuffed pig toy from behind the dresser and handing it to GIR. GIR squealed and ran off giggling madly to himself while flying the pig around like it was an airplane. Dib shivered once again and rubbed his arms up and down his arms.

"Zim, it's freezing in here! Can't you turn up the heat or something?"

"I'm afraid I can't, stink beast," Zim said, wringing the tears out of his shirt.

"W-why?" Dib could nearly see his breath as it puffed out.

"The AI brain's thermostat has been malfunctioning for a few hours now. I thought I told the computer to fix it up, but apparently _that _won't obey me as well." Zim eyed the ceiling disapprovingly.

"I'm right here, you know," voiced the computer with annoyance.

"SILENCE! You will have to warm yourself up with something else, Dib-worm." Zim relaxed against the couch, his antennas wiggling in the air for a moment.

Dib watched the antennas with interest before walking into the kitchen. Zim's black stalks twitched on his head when he heard Dib rummaging around with pots clanging and cupboards being closed. What on Irk was that stupid human doing now?

Nearly ten minutes later, Zim—eyes drooping with exhaustion from the emotional distress of today—heard the human walking into the room and his head lazily rolled to the side to see Dib carrying two mugs. Zim's attention perked up at the sight.

"Seeing as how I'm stuck in your house in the middle of a snow storm, might as well warm up seeing as how it's freezing in here."

He placed the mug onto the small table Zim was sitting in front of and sat next to the alien, taking a small sip of the mysterious drink. Zim eyed the cup suspiciously, especially since it was steaming. However, he did feel the heat coming from it and he was cold…

Zim bent his head down to sniff the brown liquid inside the cup. His antennas twitched and flattened when an odd, yet, sweet smell filled his smell receptors. Still, he was cautious. Stuff like this could be deadly to an Irken.

Zim quickly grabbed onto Dib's trench coat and shook him wildly while screaming, "DIB! What is this!?"

Dib barely caught himself as his drink began to spill over the table. He ripped out of Zim's grip and wiped his hand across his mouth.

"Jeez, Zim! It's only hot chocolate!"

Zim raised an eye. "… Hot chocolate?"

Dib wanted to face palm. "Seriously? You've never heard of… ugh. Just… drink it, Zim," he said stupidly.

Zim eyed Dib and then his drink. "Hmm…"

In a matter of seconds, Zim was literally chugging down the steaming hot chocolate without thinking. Apparently Irkens loved to chug down their drinks.

Dib didn't realize what was happening before it was too late.

"ZIM! Wait! You're drinking too—!"

By then it was too late. Zim's face turned to one of utter surprise as his cheeks swelled and he sprayed the entirety of the hot chocolate out of his mouth and all over Dib; his arms flailing in the process.

Dib's head was absolutely dripping with hot chocolate and a look of contorted pain crossed his face.

"…fast," Dib finally finished, looking miserable.

"AGH! MY MOUTH—MY TONGUE! THEY BUUURN!"

Zim pulled on an antenna while prancing about the room in pain. His tongue felt like it was on fire and he was desperately trying to spit out the offending liquid out of his mouth.

Dib laid his head on the table with a groan.

"Ugh. My head… I hate my life." His hair was dripping with the sticky liquid.

Zim was still trying to cool down his mouth while he angrily looked over at Dib's deflated posture and pointing accusingly while shouting, "POISONER!" at the top of his lungs.

Back at Dib's house…

Gaz, who was playing with her Game Slave device, felt a sudden itch in her brain telling her that her brother was complaining about something stupid; like his own pain for instance. Gaz scoffed in annoyance.

"Whiner."

Back inside Zim's fortress of doom…

Dib had cleaned off his face and clothes with a towel, but his face still felt sticky. He sighed, knowing that he might as well take another shower if he had the time.

Zim had literally thrown himself down the toilet where he flushed himself down into his lab with his shrieking. Dib had found the sight very humorous to watch. Even after Dib was finished washing out the liquid in his hair and face in the kitchen, Zim was still down in his lab. So Dib patiently waited on the couch while sipping his warm hot chocolate. GIR was entertaining himself by watching a dumb cartoon about a sponge living in a fruit under the sea or something like that. Dib rolled his eyes at the sight.

Finally, after what seemed like forever in Dib's mind, Zim emerged from the elevator that was installed in the toilet. His face took that of one who ate a lemon and his antennas were slicked back on his head in irritation. Dib nearly burst out laughing and instead started to snicker.

Zim paused just as sat down on the couch and glared hatefully over at his enemy.

"What?" He barked out.

"Oh, nothing," Dib said, fighting the urge to laugh again.

Zim ignored Dib and sat in silence, drumming his fingers over the armrest. Dib also sat in silence, but soon he became puzzled over a question he had been meaning to ask since they first got here.

"Why snowboarding?"

Zim looked over at Dib. "Eh?"

"I'm just wondering why you even chose to go skiing out here. I mean, don't you have a better use of your time than here with your hated enemy?" His curiosity had been itching at his brain for an answer.

Zim nervously picked at the couch. "I… don't understand what you mean."

"Oh, come on, Zim! Don't act like you don't know what's going on here! Ever since we were kids you've been trying to take over this planet with creepy passion and now… now you've just been isolating yourself in your base and wanting to do other things… what happened that day, Zim? Huh? Huh?"

"Shut up! Zim is perfectly normal! I can't possibly comprehend the idiocy coming out of your stupid mouth!" Zim shouted, standing up with his hands fisted at his sides.

"Oh, that's a load of bullcrap, Zim! Living in denial isn't going to get you anywhere! Something happened that month and I wanna know what it is! You can't hide the truth forever. Taking over the Earth or not, I'm still your enemy and, damn it, I'm gunna keep bugging you as long as you're on my planet."

Zim had stood up during Dib's rant and turned away with his arms crossed and shoulders hunched. Dib hesitated, not liking Zim's reaction but the itching was burning with a desire to know so Dib stood his ground.

"I think," Zim said quietly, "that the Dib should go to sleep now before anything critical happens to his limbs."

Dib's initial thought was to keep on pressing, but when did that ever give him any answers? Especially with Zim? He'll still remain a stubborn jerk. Dib sighed.

"You suck. Just know that I'll find out those answers soon enough, space boy."

"You'll be dead before then, stink brain," Zim threatened lowly.

Dib smirked at Zim's ominous, yet, empty threat. He began walking back to his bedroom and left Zim with a simple:

"We'll see, Zim. We'll see…"

**I actually don't like this chapter. But it's leading into the climax for the next chapter (or the chapter after that). Ah, yes, the climax will probably last two chapters. No promises. Anyhow, thank you again, guys! You're awesome and you make my day! :)**

**Teen: Gasp! Acne Blast Man! **

**Acne Blast Man: Yes, it is I! Here to restore your social life to its former glory! **

**Yeah. **


	10. The Race Begins

**My God, another freaking chapter! Awesome. So I just came back from snowboarding. I am on break afterall so I apologize wholeheartedly for not updating sooner but I had to reorganize my thoughts together on how to set this next chapter up. Granted, though I'm still not entireliy satisfied with my writing lately, the next chapter should be a lot better so thanks for reviewing and enjoy! **

"Get up!"

SLAP!

Dib woke up with an abrupt snort, his cheek stinging strongly.

"W-What? What's… what's going on?" Dib grabbed his glasses and clumsily pushed them onto his face with one hand. His eyes adjusted to see Zim standing over him. And he was grinning. Just… grinning.

Dib sat there with his mouth slightly ajar, brow arching questionably.

"I didn't freeze to death, did I?"

Zim frowned. "No, but you will if you don't get your lazy carcass out of bed so we can start the race already!"

There we go. That was more like Zim. Dib yawned and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands to clean away the sleepiness sticking to the corners of them. Absentmindedly, Dib glanced at the clock.

_God, no wonder I'm tired. It's six o'clock. _

Dib tensed and looked at the time for a few more seconds before he angrily groaned, threw the covers over his head, and turned away from Zim.

"Damn it, Zim, it's too early! Wake me up in two more hours!"

Dib curled into himself tighter and clenched onto his blanket hard when he felt Zim trying to tug it off of him.

"Oh, come now, Dib-filth! The sooner we start the race, the longer you get to be my slave! Now rise, you abnormally large headed tub of lard! Rise!"

Something wasn't right; Dib could hear it. Zim sounded too happy. In fact, he sounded rather _excited _for the race that was happening today. His usual insults even sounded giddy spewing from his mouth. Dib's brows furrowed. Suppose this was a setup? Was this a ruse the entire time so Zim could try and rid of Dib's very own existence? Dib thought about it as he kept up the tug-o-war with the blanket. He's left himself vulnerable to Zim plenty of times and Zim could have gotten rid of him within those moments. Still, he made a note to be cautious when the race came up. He didn't want to slip up in case Zim lets loose a deadly trap.

"—and I will freeze your organs on top of that! Now _there's _a reason for you to obey Zim!"

Dib sat up out of his thoughts and smacked Zim's hands away from his blanket. "Shut up, Zim! I'm not racing until I at least get two more hours of sleep. Do you think you could hold out till then?"

Dib was officially agitated now. Zim let go and could hear the frustration through Dib's words. Zim's teeth grounded. It was difficult for him to be patient when he was elated about something and wanted to get it over with. But he would have to play the right cards in order for Dib to comply with him. And unfortunately that would mean that he would have to respect Dib's wishes…for now.

"Fine," Zim hissed. "Two hours."

Dib rolled over and shut his eyes.

"And you better be ready when I get here," Zim muttered, leaving the room.

* * *

><p>Dib wasn't ready. However, it mattered none to Zim as he physically dragged the teen off the bed and threw all of Dib's snow gear in his face. Zim left the human to dress and waited in the living room good-naturedly in his attire… until GIR came rocketing in screeching about watching TV. Zim grit his teeth and stomped over towards the robot. With a quick swipe of his hand, the robot was deactivated, eyes gray and looking dead. Zim placed him in the corner of the room.<p>

"I will come back after we're done and turn you on, GIR. I don't want your misbehaving actions to screw up my success!"

Zim sat down once more. The alien couldn't help but grin. Today would be the day that Zim receives his victory. He was completely positive that he would win for the Irken held a trick up his sleeve. That trick happened to be the work of practice. Practice, practice, practice…

_Oh, and such practicing I have done_, Zim sniggered out in his head.

"Are you gunna sit there like a complete drooling moron or are we going to get this over with?"

Zim jerked out of his thoughts and turned towards an ill-tempered Dib towering over him with his snowboard in hand.

"Eh? Oh, uh, yes! Yes indeed! Come, Dib-thing! We must be off!" Zim led the way outside and his adversary followed, grumbling to himself about lack of sleep.

It was beautiful out. The sun grazed the mountaintops with brightly sparkled rays that gleamed out over the snow. The sky was clear of any clouds and not a scene of mass destruction in sight, which is sadly what Dib sees every day. A soft breeze ruffled his clothes. The snow was soft and powdery, the best kind to ski on. Dib smiled. This place here is what Dib would call his own little Winter Wonderland.

Dib looked over at Zim to see him scanning the area curiously, contact covered eyes wide and shining at the sight. For a moment Dib questioned to himself if Zim was enjoying the scenery as much as he was. The thought was yanked out of his head by a cane of disbelief, knowing Zim wasn't one to enjoy anything that Earth gave.

They both sat down, binding their feet in their place. Dib watched a cold puff of air disappear in front of his face before he turned his head towards Zim.

"Alright, lizard boy, here's how we're gunna race. The first one down—"

A gloved hand nearly smacked Dib in the face as Zim waved it around exasperatingly so as to gain attention from him.

"Question, Dib-smell!"

"What?" Dib grounded out, pushing Zim's rude hand away from him.

"Aren't you forgetting that you still need to teach Zim the 'Q'?"

Dib growled. "It's an 'S', you idiot. And I already taught you it."

Zim tapped his chin in fake contemplation and then snapped his fingers. "Ah, yes, now I remember. I _think _I remember how to do it. Perhaps Zim shall **practice **before we start, hmm?" Zim's face lifted in anticipation and another grin settled over him. It started to freak Dib out.

"Um… yeah, sure, I guess." Dib didn't know what the hell was going on, but it didn't look as if anything good were about to come out of it. However, his rival still was many years behind catching up to him and seeing a failed attempt to snake down the mountain would be enough to amuse the adolescent. Dib smirked and leaned back on his hands.

Zim cautiously lifted himself onto his snowboard. He wobbled for a few seconds before taking a deep breath and balancing himself out. Then, as Dib leaned forward anxiously in hope for a total wreck to happen, Zim turned his snowboard in an angle where he gracefully made an arc on his toes so that he was facing the human. Dib was taken aback by this. Zim _always _had trouble doing that. Dib looked up into the surprisingly playful smirk on Zim's face. Dib deadpanned.

_Let the fun begin_ was Zim's last thought before he angled his snowboard and shot down the mountain, doing his full on best to show off his elegant wavy belt of snow traveling behind him as he zigzagged his way across the vast amount of snow.

Dib's mouth dropped. He swore he could feel the snow gathering on his chin. Zim was… why, he was…

He was _shredding _it. The thought made Dib's stomach clench uneasily. This just wasn't possible. There was no way this could be happening to him. Things could not be possibly worse at the moment. Something is wrong. Dear god, something is totally wrong here because it's impossible for Zim to be able to snowboard like a professional… after only two days!

Dib's mind reeled and he saw Zim slow down to a stop nearly half way down the mountain, turning on his toes to face and wickedly grin up at his foe. He cupped his hands around his mouth.

"Okay, Dib-monkey, Zim is ready to start and ultimately win the race now!"

Dib slowly stood, looking down the mountain fretfully and cursing Zim in as many ways as possible.

_Okay, Dib, so Zim's gotten better. But he's still not as good as you are! You can still win this race. Just build up some confidence and show no fear. Zim loves fear. He practically feeds off of it. Don't give him that satisfaction! C'mon, you can do this! …Man, I hope I'm not talking out loud to myself right now. _

Shaking as many nerves out of his body, Dib gave Zim a challenging stare and made his decent towards the alien.

Zim watched Dib whiz down the mountain as if he was carving through soft butter. He frowned. The worm baby was still fast, but who knows… perhaps all Dib needs is a little _push_ to help Zim win the race. Zim nearly giggled with glee at the diabolical plot running through his skull.

As Dib neared the Irken, Zim idly glanced behind Dib for a moment and was taken aback by a flash of red. Zim took another look, but it was gone.

"Eh?" Zim rubbed his eyes.

"You're going down, Zim! You think you can scare me? Well, you're wrong! You're just a slimy, pathetic, heartless, little green bug from space who is annoying as hell and expects everyone to kiss the ground he walks on! Well, I'll tell you one thing, Zim, don't assume me that I'm ever gunna—"

The tremor beneath Dib was so grand that he fell back, grunting as he landed on his back and slid a little. Zim, too, fell and had to hold himself up by his hands and knees from the sudden shake. Zim felt the snow shift under him and pushing him farther down, but he did his best to hold his ground. It was still again.

"What… what was that?!" Dib breathed out, feeling shaky.

Before Zim could answer, a ferocious howl pierced the air and both of their bodies jumped out of their skin. Dib felt his hair stand up in a chill, and not because it was cold out either. His fear escalated for he knew the sound of that monstrous roar.

Dib heard Zim take a sharp intake of breath and saw that the alien was staring at something behind him with wild and terror stricken eyes. Another earth grounding shake wracked their bodies. Then another. Dib didn't dare turn around. He tried getting up so they could escape, but the force of the quakes caused him to fall again and snow continued to slide them along.

Zim quickly held onto Dib's board and planted his board firmly into the snow to stop them from sliding. He knew that even with the beast approaching slowly, they would never be able to escape by just sliding down the mountain. They needed a diversion.

On the top of his head, Zim's PAK opened up and emitted a small laser beam, knowing it was enough to distract the beast. With a well careful aim, Zim fired.

Right on target. The laser rebounded off of the monster and into the mountain, wounding it and causing an earsplitting screech of pain from it before it fell to the side. Zim nearly shouted out in victory and beamed. The creature fell. Hard.

Dib yelled out in surprise by the feel of the huge tremor that shook the ground with such vigor. They both slid down a few feet before Zim forced them to stop. Panting, they both looked at one another in hopes that it was over.

Far from it. Even though Dib hadn't looked at what took place behind him, he knew what was coming. There was no way that a shake like that would ever keep that snow up on the mountain in place. The realization had dawned on him at that moment and he paled to the color of the snow. The rumbling began and there was no time to waste.

"Zim! Follow me! Hurry!" Dib screamed over the noise. He jumped up and zipped down the mountain. Zim stood up on his snowboard and looked up to see the danger rapidly catching up them. Zim yelled in horror and sped off after Dib, desperately trying to keep up with the boy.

Dib looked back and his heart leapt in his throat. Oh, god. They didn't have a chance of making it down the mountain to the resort before that avalanche swallows them up. They needed to hide away from it. But where? Dib looked around and, to his shocking luck, saw a small cavern a little off to the side of the mountain. That should protect them, right?

With no other option, Dib shouted back towards Zim to gain his attention. He gestured to the cave up ahead and Zim nodded, heading in that direction. Luckily, Zim caught up to Dib and continued to snowboard next to him, instructing the human to stay close. Dib tried not to panic. Everything would be just fine. They were going to be safe.

Until that rock popped up. There was nothing he could do. Dib shrieked as his snowboard struck the rock and he was pitched forward. Zim yelped as Dib smacked into him and they both tumbled into a series of agonizing rolls.

A searing flash of white hot pain erupted into Dib's head as he collided with the tree, shooting off to the side and not knowing where he was going to land. There was a snap and more agony consumed Dib. He screamed. The pain was blinding and as he came to a sudden stop, he tried lifting his head up to look for Zim, but his head suddenly weighed ten times more than his body weight and making it hard for him to focus. Darkness clouded his vision.

He could only feel the bitter cold clamping down on his body and the deafening noise of the avalanche. _No, don't give up, _he angrily told himself. A dry sob left his throat as he tried to lift himself up, but his limbs could hardly move an inch. For sure now the snow was already covering him, entombing him in his own frozen tomb of doom. Blinking tiredly, Dib's morbid thoughts trailed over to his death and how people will eventually find his frozen body buried underneath six feet of snow.

_Oh god, and I never even got the chance to say goodbye to my sister or even my arrogant father or even mock Zim one last time. I at least hope that bastard made it to safety… to go get help… god, help me. I don't wanna die… Zim… I need help… please… _

Dib's eyes drooped as he began to succumb to the numbing pain. He reached out a trembling hand to try and grasp something—anything.

"Ziiiim…help…" Dib quietly moaned out.

Then… it went dark.

**Yeeessss the suspense is killing you, no? Well, do not fret! It's about to get a hell of a lot worse from here. **

**"Every day that goes by I become more grotesque!" -Chickenfoot**

**"That's becuase you don't bathe." -Dib**


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